End Game Arc 3: Heat
by Suz2
Summary: Wiseguy: A mysterious enemy makes the first move against the NY mob since Vinnie & Roger were recruited, Susan Profitt plots her revenge...


Author's notes:

This is the second story in an arc that spans a three year period in one possible future for our heroes. My thanks to my Beta reader, Dawnwind, for her encouragement and commentary, as well as her medical expertise. You are encouraged to join her in the feedback loop. My thanks for any critiques you may wish to give. Email reviews and flames can be sent to

suzinsf@earthlink.net

Rating: R for language, violence and sexuality. If you find content of this nature offensive, DO NOT READ THIS!

Spoilers: Well, essentially the entire three year run of the series, prior to Ken Wahl's disappearance from the show. This arc disregards the entire 4th season and the 1996 film, sticking strictly to the original cannon.

Disclaimer: Roger Lococco, Vince Terranova, Frank McPike and the Lifeguard, as well as assorted mobsters, are the property of Steven J. Cannell Productions. I took the liberty of dusting them off and taking them down off their shelf to play with them, since their creators weren't using them at the moment. No disrespect is intended, nor is any profit being made.

Summary: A mysterious enemy makes the first move against the NY Mob since Vinnie's recruitment, and Susan Profitt makes her plans for revenge. Roger and Tracy continue their feud. Apologies for Tracy's Mary Sue tendencies, but since her presence is required to legitimize the boys, they might as well enjoy her company

Wiseguy:

End Game Arc Å July-October, 1998

Heat

Roger's pilot put them down on the rural Long Island airfield with scarcely a bump. His announcement over the intercom that Roger had requested that they remain aboard the jet until Lococco could board it was the first indication they had that all was not well.

Vince peered out of the tiny window beside him at the big, black Mercedes Benz S600 sedan that roared across the tarmac toward them.

"What's going on?" Tracy asked, concern coloring her voice.

"Hell if I know," Vince replied, uneasily. "But whatever it is, it's not good."

They waited impatiently as the co-pilot unsealed the jet's door and lowered the collapsible stairway, standing back as Roger scrambled up them two at the time. 

"Welcome back to the trenches," Roger greeted them grimly, handing Vince a shoulder holster complete with Vinnie's big revolver. "Get dressed, sweetheart," he told Terranova.

Vince took the harness and weapon automatically, removing his leather motorcycle jacket and putting on the rig as he interrogated Lococco. "Where's the war, Rog? What's up?"

"Castellano slipped his leash three days ago. He's on the loose somewhere. Capuzi and Aiuppo have every wiseguy in the city out looking for him, but he's disappeared pretty damned thoroughly. Since we were the cause of his fall from grace, I figure that puts us at the top of his list of unfinished business, Buckwheat."

"Great," Vince said cynically. "I guess the honeymoon's over," he told Tracy dryly.

"Let's get you two the hell off this airstrip. We're way too exposed for comfort, here," Roger told them. "I'll take point," he added and turned back to the jet's door.

Vince took Tracy's elbow and moved her ahead of him. "Stay behind Roger," he told her, casting her a reassuring smile as she glanced back at him with fear in her hazel eyes.

Sandwiched between the two men, their weapons drawn, Tracy was hustled down the stairs and bundled into the back of the Mercedes. Vince got in beside her, Roger getting behind the wheel.

The solid thud of the door as Vince slammed it shut caught his attention. "What the hell have you got here, Rog? A tank?"

"I had McPike pull a few strings. This baby is a State Department hand-me-down. Fully armored, with bulletproof glass in all the windows. No one is gonna be capping us in this thing. Not unless they've got surface-to-air missiles." Lococco started the car and accelerated rapidly away from the jet.

"So how'd he slip Capuzi's boys?" Vince asked, reholstering the pistol.

"There seems to be some disagreement on that," Roger answered. "But he had to have had help. Probably one of Capuzi's guys who was on Castellano's payroll before the collapse of empires, or maybe just someone who doesn't like the idea of the mob bringing in outside contractors to clean house. Either way, it's someone with something to gain by having Brandon out on the town, and us sweating it."

Vinnie considered this. "McPike know?"

"Oh, yeah. And he's none too pleased, let me tell you. Uncle Mike said to tell you to watch your back. And Frank told me to give Tracy this," he added, handing small zippered pouch over the back of his seat to her.

She took it, realizing what it contained as soon as she felt the weight. Unhappily, she opened it to remove the blue steel automatic, examining it with distaste. "Is this really necessary?" she asked, looking at Vince.

"He wants you armed if you set foot outside the house and grounds," Roger confirmed. "Your range instructor's okayed all your permits and licensing."

"Oh, wonderful," Tracy sighed, catching the flash of Roger's grin in the rearview mirror.

"I've been recruiting while you two were off playing footsie," Roger continued. "We have ourselves a couple of guys one of my old buddies in Nevada trained up. I sent Paul's boys back home with our thanks and a healthy bonus. There shouldn't be any hard feelings on that end. And I've contacted a friend who used to train LURP dogs in Nam. He's got a couple of dogs ready to ship out as soon as we can send out someone he can train as their handler."

"Guard dogs?" Vince asked, frowning. "You really think we need them?"

"We've got twenty fenced acres to patrol, and only four guys to do it, if you count Donatello and Falcone. The dogs can do it better. You ever seen a LURP dog work?" Roger asked.

"No, Rog, I can't say as I have," Vince replied dryly.

"They were as good a weapon in the hands of the right handler as a platoon of Special Forces. The V.C. eventually put a bounty on them cause they could spot an ambush every time. Denny's dogs were some of the best," Roger synopsized. 

Tracy listened to this exchange silently. The prospect of life in an armed camp was decidedly depressing as the reality of what she had let herself in for began to make itself felt. She stared out of the window, watching the countryside flow past them. 

When Roger pulled into the drive of the house twenty minutes later, they were met with the first of the numerous changes to the property since their last visit nearly a month before. A massive and decorative wrought iron gate parted for them automatically at the command of the remote clipped to the driver's side sun visor. The broad, curving drive had been re-graveled, and the lawn re-sodded. A bank of large shrubs lined the iron fence along the road, shielding the house from casual scrutiny. The considerable damage done to the landscaping by the construction crews had been repaired, and in most cases, improved on, in Tracy's estimation. Lococco had obviously spared no expense to give the place an air of permanence. Fully mature roses in full bloom lined the back of the planter beds along the front of the house, with a riot of lower-growing color splashed along the ground in front of them.

Lococco caught her surprised expression. "Don't worry, sweet thing, there's still a ton of stuff to do inside. And you're gonna need to see about hiring a housekeeper or something."

He led the way into the house, standing aside to let the couple to enter the foyer first. Roger had not been wrong, Tracy thought. There were still a considerable number of finishing touches that needed attention. But she was surprised at how well it had come together, considering the majority of the furnishings in the common rooms had been acquired piecemeal. The ten foot marble-topped round table she had found at a roadside antique shop near her mother's house looked almost delicate in the vast foyer, it's massive scale dwarfed by the room, and the newly re-varnished woodwork gleamed with amber and wine highlights. The twenty foot square antique silk Persian carpet centered in the foyer did not look familiar, and she glanced at Lococco, surprised again by the man's distinct sense of esthetics.

Lococco hauled her bags up the north stairs, Vince on his heels with his own luggage, while Tracy brought up the rear, forgoing a tour of the rest of the downstairs in favor of seeing how the master suite had turned out.

An ornamental but distinctly functional wrought iron gate had been installed across the top of the stairs, about three feet down the wide hall from the top landing. Its' double doors stood wide open, the lacy filigree of its' structure silhouetted against the ivory of the walls, light from the bank of windows along the connecting balcony over the solarium throwing elaborate shadows down the hall. The massive mahogany doors to the library stood wide open, strangely welcoming.

This room also needed work, but the foundations had been laid. The shelves had been partially filled with some of the miscellaneous books that she had obtained as a job lot at an estate sale and the big tufted suede sofa was in place in the center of the room, a low coffee table standing between it and the pair of distressed leather club chairs. A massive library table occupied the space under the bank of windows, and a couple of large desks occupied two corners of the room. Variously sized oriental carpets scattered across the dark amber of the refinished oak floors added splashes of muted and jeweled color, accented by the dark sage of the heavy velvet drapes framing the windows. The empty panels of woodwork interspersed between the waist-to-ceiling bookshelves needed artwork, but that was hardly urgent. And the vast number of shelves needed filling. A few plants wouldn't be amiss, either, Tracy mused as she followed Roger and Vince into the master bedroom.

She was secretly delighted with what met her eyes. The walls had been faux finished in a suede-like antique gold, the wood work and plaster moldings highlighted in ivory, washed with the same golden tone to pick out the details of the ornamentation. The king-sized bed had been fitted with an antique head and footboard in Italian burl walnut that had been cobbled together out of two smaller bed sets, matching nightstands on either side. The lofty down comforter with its' ivory silk acanthus damask and matching throw pillows looked luxurious without being frilly or overly feminine. She had arranged for much of the artwork from Vinnie's small Brooklyn house to be hung, the little collection of black and white photos and old European railway posters and product advertising from the twenties and thirties he favored occupying surprising little of the vast wall space. 

Several wingbacks with ottomans formed a couple of different seating groups, giving the room a relaxed quality. Various mismatched dressers and tallboys occupied space along the walls, and a huge armoire loaded with stereo and video equipment stood to the left of the bed.

"Nice," was Vinnie's surprised comment as he dropped his bags on the chaise that made up part of the seating area closest to the fireplace. 

Roger dumped Tracy's bags at the entrance to the dressing room. "I had your clothes moved out from D.C.," he told Tracy. "But you'll need to get the rest of your stuff out of your apartment." He turned to Vince. "I figured you might want to deal with your crap yourself, so the only thing I moved were your clothes. And let's get you scheduled for a makeover, Buckwheat. Your wardrobe is a little skimpy on everything besides ratty jeans and T-shirts."

Vince grimaced, knowing he was in for another go-round with pricey men's shops. While he realized the necessity, he generally disliked shopping. He wondered if he could foist that particular chore off on his wife.

"I'm making dinner tonight. Plan on being there. I want you to meet the new guys," Lococco ordered imperiously.

"Yes, your highness," Tracy muttered under her breath.

Vince suppressed a grin. "Actually, that's not a bad idea. Rudy always has the troops to a sit-down meal, usually on Sundays. Good for morale, according to him. And it means everyone knows who signs the paychecks."

Roger nodded. "I'd picked up on that," he agreed. "Probably a good precedent to start. Especially once the palace guard gets established." He turned, heading for the door out into the hall, pausing at the threshold to look back at them. "We've got meetings tomorrow. Paul Torricelli is flying out. Seems he has a business proposition' for us."

Vince sighed. "Okay," he acknowledged.

Roger departed, closing the door after himself.

"Alright, I'll count to ten before I start ragging on the man, but you'd think he could break us in gently," Tracy complained, walking into Vinnie's arms. "I'm jet lagged, and I'm cranky and I want to make love to my husband."

Vince grinned at her. "Well, that's one thing we can do something about," he pointed out. "It won't be time for dinner till at least six That gives us almost three hours. Maybe that's enough time to get you un-cranky'." He bent his head to kiss her, smiling against her mouth as he felt her hands at his belt.

Dinner was another of Lococco's carefully crafted works of art. Perfectly roasted lamb, grilled vegetables, a salad of baby greens, all of which were seasoned subtly and perfectly. Tracy could almost admit to falling in love with a man who cooked this way. 

The new enlistees were introduced, obviously nonplussed by the fact that their employers were perfectly comfortable at table with the hired hands. That the food itself had been prepared by the man their training instructor had told them was one of the most lethal assassins the C.I.A. had ever recruited was clearly a source of bemusement to them:

Lococco had made the introductions as he presided over pre-dinner cocktails at the bar in the parlor next to the main library, across the foyer from the diningroom. He handed Tracy a gin and tonic as she and Vince entered the room, then poured out a measure of scotch for Vince, gesturing at the two seated men they were unfamiliar with. "Vince and Tracy Terranova, meet Kevin D'Arrigo and Alex Blanchard. Kevin, Alex, - Vince and Tracy."

The pair rose from their respective seats to shake hands. "Mr. and Mrs. Terranova," D'Arrigo acknowledged formally.

Vince grinned as he shook the proffered hand. "We don't usually stand on ceremony, around here. Just Vince and Tracy, okay?"

The two exchanged looks, then Blanchard shrugged. "Sure," he agreed.

"So how was San Francisco?" Roger asked, changing the subject.

"Gorgeous," Tracy replied, enthusiastically. "I've always liked that city. It's so _small_."

"When I wasn't up to my armpits in financial statements, I enjoyed it," Vince added, with a meaningful glance at Lococco. "Maybe next time I go out there, I can actually do some sightseeing."

Roger grinned, not minding Vinnie's annoyance at having to assume responsibility for making contact with, and asserting some dominance over, the small handful of financial wizards who supervised Roger's fortune. He had been the recipient of several agitated phone calls from the MBAs when they realized that Terranova was not a passing phase, but would actually be a full partner in all of Lococco's enterprises. He had been impressed that the desk jockeys had done the research to discover Terranova's public persona, but had told them that if he chose to hand things off to an ex-mob wiseguy, that was his business. And if they didn't like it, they were free to go elsewhere. That had shut them up rather quickly.

"It's not going anywhere, barring a major earthquake, Buckwheat. You'll have other opportunities. But business always comes first. Soup's on," he added, finishing the last mouthful of liquor in his glass and leading the way to the diningroom.

Tracy had piloted the dinner conversation, drawing out the two newcomers and ascertaining a general overview of their backgrounds. Both of them had gone through an intensive program in bodyguard work, a job description they euphemistically termed personal security expert'. They were conversant with all manner of weaponry, electronics, anti-surveillance techniques and even private investigative techniques. She listened, interested, though frequently feeling in over her head, as they described their training under one of Roger's military buddies, the various scenarios they had been put through, and their modes of dealing with them. This was their first live' assignment. She caught both their anticipation and their faint nervousness. "I assume Roger told you about the loose cannon out there," she said, knowing that this would precipitate a discussion of whatever was known about Castellano's disappearance. It was far more interesting than one of Lococco's terse briefings, and allowed her the opportunity to ask questions she would have hesitated to ask Roger.

Lococco let the Terranovas do the conversing, contenting himself with listening. Vince had a politician's natural sense of how to work a crowd. It was a skill Roger had only caught glimpses of in the past, knowing it was not one Vinnie had needed as a subordinate, but that it would be invaluable now that he was in a position of authority. Tracy, too, was a natural hostess. Her interest in the recent life histories of the two new men, whether real or feigned, relaxed them and opened them up far more than his conversations with them had. He was impressed, against his will, by the astuteness of her questions about the Castellano disappearance, and by her question, directed at himself, about whether Brandon could have allied himself with Vinnie's hypothetical mastermind. It was one he had been asking himself since Aiuppo had first informed him of Castellano's escape. It was also, clearly, one Vince had not taken into account. He saw Terranova's sharpened interest as he looked to Roger for a reply. 

"I don't know, but it's a possibility we need to consider," Lococco agreed, eyes focused on the wineglass he turned slowly by the stem. "In the mean time, I don't want either of you setting foot outside the grounds without one of the guys with you. Until we track down Castellano, you're targets."

"So are you, Rog," Vince pointed out. "If we need security, then so do you. Period. You may have eyes in the back of your head, but you're still just one guy."

Roger nodded, reluctantly. "Deal."

"I can tell you right now, I am _not_ dragging one of these men with me to D.C. next week. I have an apartment's worth of stuff to pack up and arrange to move, and there's no way I can explain a bodyguard to my mother," Tracy stated firmly.

Vince had begun to recognize the tone and the body language that signaled one of those issues on which Tracy would not compromise. He watched as Roger attempted to convince her she was putting herself at unnecessary risk by her refusal to abide by the house rules, interceding before Roger's temper got the better of him. "Trace, you're going to have to have one of them bring you to the airport and put you on the plane. I'll make arrangements for a hands-off security blanket around your apartment, and your mom's house. Just eyes, to make sure no one is showing more interest than they should. Castellano didn't know where your base was, but there's nothing to say he hasn't found out, and is looking to pick you up at any of your old haunts." He met her rebellious eyes, knowing she could hear his own refusal to compromise her safety.

She glared at him, debating whether or not to pitch a fit. She knew this subject was not open to further debate, Vince having made it absolutely clear to her that he would not give in. The aura of authority in him reminded her disconcertingly of her father. It was that realization that curbed her temper. She could not be seen to publicly challenge him. And she saw his faint nod as the flare of temper faded from her face, acknowledging her capitulation. "Alright. But I don't want to see lurkers in the underbrush, or around every corner. My mom doesn't need the adrenaline rush. I'll be in D.C. most of the week," she informed him, catching his displeasure. 

"Moving can't take the whole week," he said in unhappy disbelief.

"Vinnie, I have stuff to wrap up," she told him. "I have a resignation to tender to Georgetown, though my pink slip is probably in my mailbox. Besides, I want to find a nice, cooperative justice of the peace to handle our civil ceremony. The sooner the better."

Vince grinned. This he was willing to support wholeheartedly. "Okay, but I'm on record as not being happy that my new wife is already spending a week away from me," he teased her.

Vince and Roger dropped Tracy at the airport that Monday morning, leaving Donatello to watch over her until the flight left, then headed for their slated meeting with Torricelli at his waterfront dock operations.

The warehouses had a seedy air and a generally run-down quality that made both men wary as they pulled the Benz alongside a loading dock. They checked their weapons 

and got out of the car, clambering up onto the loading dock and peering around for any sign of habitation. The low murmur of voices drew their attention, and, pulling their guns, they moved quietly into the warehouse. Empty packing crates littered the grease-stained concrete and they made their way around a rusty forklift, heading in the direction of the voices.

The low, rumbling snarl of a dog and the unmistakable sound of a pistol being cocked brought them up short.

"Hold it, guys," came the command. "Put down the heat. Real slow-like, or I let Sandy floss his teeth on your asses."

They did as they had been told, moving slowly as they straightened to eye their captor. He was not a large man, perhaps a shade over five-foot-ten, his clothing scruffy, the tattered jeans and T-shirt faded with wear and washing. They clung like a second skin to muscles that showed hard use, rather than the carefully sculpted physique of a health-club aficionado. He couldn't have been more than thirty, in Roger's estimation. The dog at his side was a mongrel, some sort of shepherd-wire hair terrier cross, with a mouthful of gleaming teeth, and every hair on its' body bristled as its' growl thrummed a base riff.

"Who are you and what the hell are you doin' snoopin' around here?" came the question. 

"Vince Terranova, Roger Lococco. We're here to meet with Paul Torricelli," Vince answered calmly as the younger man bent to retrieve the guns they had surrendered.

His disbelief was unfeigned. "We'd'a known if Mr. Torricelli was coming," he said, eyes narrowing. "Sammy! Jay! Get your asses out here!" he called loudly toward the office from which voices emanated.

At the bellowed summons, two older men emerged from the glass-fronted little booth. Both were grubby, obviously dock workers, as well-muscled as the younger man, despite paunches of varying sizes. "What the hell is goin' on out here, Mitch?" the bigger of the two demanded, eyeing the intruders.

"These two bozos say they're here to meet with Mr. Torricelli," Mitch replied, his skepticism apparent. "I took these offa them," he added, tossing the pair of guns to the beefy man who appeared to be in charge.

He caught them, passing them to the man next to him, glaring at Roger and Vince menacingly. "First I heard about Mr. Torricelli bein' in town." He turned to the man beside him. "Sammy, stow these two in the lock-up. I'm gonna see if I can find out what the hell is goin' on."

Resigned to cooling their heels, Lococco and Terranova obediently moved in the direction Sammy's wave of Vinnie's pistol indicated. They were escorted through a steel-plated door into what was obviously a secure storage area, and locked in.

"Seems somebody forgot to tell the hired hands we were coming," Vince observed, wryly.

Roger, busy snooping amongst the crates that shared the space with them, nodded. "This kinda thing happen a lot?"

"No. Not unless there's some kind of hidden agenda," Vince said. "Paul is either rolling us over to someone, or he's letting us act as point for a situation he's not real sure about."

"I'm inclined toward option number two," Lococco agreed. "He wasn't specific about his business proposal, but I got the definite impression that he had done enough research to know you worked Sonny's Atlantic City dock operations ten years ago."

"So maybe he wants us to take a look at his operations here for him. Give me your impressions," Vince requested.

"The three out there -" Roger jerked his head at the door, "- are just your basic worker-bees. They've met Paul, but I'd be surprised if any of them was connected to the mob. They know what's going through this place, cause they're the ones humpin' it. So maybe someone's got sticky fingers, or is running some sideline outta here that's pulling down heat on Paul that he doesn't want."

Vince nodded his agreement with this, as far as it went, but the furrow on his forehead caught Roger's attention.

"What am I missing?" he asked, his look sharpening.

"So where are all the other warm bodies?" Vince asked, musingly. "We've got a dock, a warehouse, and a cargo ship out front. So how come nothing is coming off — or going onto — that ship, and there's no obvious cargo anywhere on the loading docks or in the warehouse?"

"Ah." Roger's tone expressed a certain degree of enlightenment. "So it's not just cause they're waiting for the right tide?"

"Maybe, but then where's the crew?" Vince began pacing. "Shippers don't make squat while their ships are docked. They don't earn unless those tubs are full and moving. So whoever owns that tin bucket outside is tying up a dock, tying up Paul's warehouse, and keeping his crew from working."

"A squeeze play?" Roger inquired.

"It's a possibility, anyway," Vince agreed. His attention turned to the crates Roger had been examining. "Anything interesting?" he asked.

"I guess that all depends on your definition of interesting'" Roger replied, pulling a Leatherman out of a pocket and beginning to pry loose the top of the nearest crate. "According to the label, what we have here is a whole passel of fancy cocktail nuts." He succeeded in loosening the crate top and set it aside, reaching into the packing material and pulling out a can labeled with a nationally known brand name of nuts. Roger yanked up on the pull-tab and peeled back the lid. "Now, _that_ qualifies as interesting," he said, handing the can to Vince.

Vinnie up-ended the contents into his hand, staring at the little pistol that lay across his palm. He looked up at Roger. "Shit."

"My thoughts, exactly." Roger agreed. "Plastic firearms only have one use, Buckwheat, and that's to get taken places that frown on the carrying of hardware. Courthouses. Airports. Schools. Federal buildings. Prisons. I guess the big question is, are these babies coming or going?"

"The _big question_ is, what are you doing nosing around this stuff?" came the unmistakably angry tone of the beefy man at whose order they had been confined in the first place.

Roger shrugged. "Gotta do something to pass the time," he answered.

"Let's see how you feel about passing the time hanging from my loading crane," he snapped, cocking the pistol he held, and waving them forward.

Vince put the little plastic gun on top of the crate and stepped towards the door, Roger at his heels. "Paul is not gonna be real happy to see us strung up like sides of beef," he told the man as he brushed past him.

"_Mr. Torricelli_ is not gonna be real happy a coupla guys in thousand dollar suits and a fancy car are pokin' around his business," was the response. 

They were walked through the warehouse toward the big rolling doors that opened out onto the dock. Mitch and his dog accompanied them with a second gun leveled at them. As they reached open air, a silver Lincoln limousine pulled up in front of them. The two dock workers were brought up short in surprise as Paul Torricelli got out of the back seat of the big car.

"Vince, Roger. I see the boys have been showing you a good time," the stocky don grinned at them as he walked around the back of the limo to shake their hands.

"Yeah," Vince grinned back. "We were just about to practice our high dives from your crane."

"Glad to see you two don't take this too seriously," Torricelli gestured at the two men whose guns were wavering. "Oh, put it away," he told the pair. "These bad boys are here at my invitation," he assured them. "Now apologize for wrinkling them."

Mitch holstered his gun first. "Sorry, Mr. Torricelli," he said, then turned to Roger and Vinnie. "Sorry bout the misunderstanding," he apologized.

"No problem. It's usually better to play it safe," Vince replied.

The beefy man — Jay — Roger assumed by process of elimination, followed suit, holstering his weapon at the small of his back, and offering a ham-like hand. Vinnie, the politician, shook it. Roger contented himself with a frigid glare.

"So what was it that you wanted to discuss?" Vince asked Torricelli as the don led them back inside and straight to the secure storage area they had just left. 

Torricelli took note of the opened crate and the plastic pistol lying next to its' peanut can. "I guess you've figured that out for yourselves," he observed as he turned to them. "How long ago did you get here?"

"About half an hour," Lococco responded flatly. "We were shown to the presidential suite and had ourselves a look around."

Paul grinned. "Well, I figured the two of you for initiative. Glad to see I was right. Let's go somewhere and talk," he said, picking up the little pistol and its' can and making for the windowed office. Terranova and Lococco followed.

"You boys keep an eye peeled," Torricelli told his two dock men. "Mr. Terranova and Mr. Lococco were the only guests I was expecting today. Anyone else shows up and I'd like you to escort them elsewhere." He shut the door and waved a hand at the pair of wooden ladder-back chairs that faced the desk that he sat down behind. "Sorry about the primitive amenities," he told them as they sat.

"No problem. I spent my share of time in a place not too different a few years back," Vince assured him.

"So I heard," Torrecelli said. "The whole Grecco blow-up was what made me think of you, when my guys first spotted the scam that someone is running on me. See, this operation is mostly legit. So when a coupla guys approached my dock supervisor about storing a shipment of nuts coming in from Asia until the truckers could come for it, he figured, what the hell. Stack it in a corner some place and let it collect dust and pay rent till the pick up." 

"What tipped them to the guns?" Roger asked.

"Mitchell is a suspicious bastard. When the guys insisted that the nuts go into the lock-up, he figured it had to be contraband. So he took a look-see. And told Jay what he found. Jay contacted my dock supervisor, and he got word to me. That was about two days ago. In the meantime, I've got their rust bucket cluttering up my dock and a coupla dozen guys who can't work till I get these people outta here. Only I can't get a commitment from them on a pick up time. And the whole thing is starting to smell like a set-up. So I clear out my guys and just leave a skeleton crew, with orders no one sets foot into the place without the supervisor's say-so."

"Which explains the welcome," Vince observed. "So what is it you want from me and Rog?"

"Suggestions. I wanna find out where these little beauties are headed. And who's buyin' em, and what for. It looks like trouble to me, and I don't want some wacko in Idaho lookin' to pull some kinda violent anti-government protest blowin' away some judge in the local courthouse with a gun that can be traced to it's point of entry — on _my_ docks!"

"Won't happen," Roger pointed out. "These things are being smuggled. No serial numbers, no registration, no nothing. Nothing to link them to you. Unless someone else in the distribution chain gets busted and rolls over on the rest of the system."

"Not a chance I'm willing to take," Torricelli told them. "These things are only good for one thing, and that's terrorism. I don't want a plane-load of blue-haired tourists on a flight to Miami winding up hijacked to Bogota cause one of these things wound up on the same plane."

"Mighty upstanding of you," Roger drawled. "But why should you care what they get used for as long as you get your taste?" 

"I'm willing to make a profit on a lotta things, but I draw the line at arms. I'll sell drugs to junkies, whores to johns, collect wagers from the gamblers out there. Those customers are exercising their personal freedom to go to hell in the hand basket of their choice. But when you sell guns, it's not the people buyin' em that tend to get hurt. It's usually some innocent bystander who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." Torricelli was emphatic.

Vince nodded, considering. "So you came to us to see if there's some way to get this problem moved off your doorstep and into the Atlantic?" At the don's nod, he continued. "Why not call the cops? Or the ATF?" 

"I can't take the heat," Torricelli said. "Believe me, I've thought about it, though."

Lococco thought about this for several moments. "So what if you hand off the docks to, say, a neutral third party? That way, we can call in the Feds, get rid of the hardware and come off smelling like a rose."

Vinnie smiled. "A neutral third party with some connections inside law enforcement?" he asked Roger.

Lococco nodded, eyes crinkling. "It just so happens that I know a couple of enterprising businessmen new to New York looking for local investments. Who happen to be investigating the transportation markets hoping to score a way to move a large amount of consumer electronics to the foreign marketplaces. And who just happen to have a few friends who owe them a favor or two inside the D.O.J."

Torricelli's eyes narrowed as he looked from one to the other of them, curiously. "What good's a connection in the C.I.A.? The guns are on American soil."  
"Who said our connection was in the C.I.A.?" Roger quizzed. "But for the sake of argument, say you're right. Those guns came from overseas, am I right?"

Torricelli nodded slowly.

"So it gets slipped to the right ear at Langley that there's a shipment of terrorist weapons sitting on a New York dock with a point of origin outside the country. The ATF gets notified and the C.I.A. starts hunting for the senders. And we stay the hell out of it and let taxpayer dollars do what they're supposed to do."

"Nice," Paul smiled slowly. "So how do I interest these hypothetical businessmen in a slightly used marine outfit?"

"Name a price," Lococco grinned back at him.

The negotiations were conducted over a round of beers scavenged from the battered little refrigerator in the office. The eventual arrangement they arrived at was that legal title would pass to them with all its' rights and responsibilities, and income from the business would be split sixty-forty in favor of _Pangea_, with Vince and Roger acting as _de facto_ consultants'. The unwritten understanding was that when the presumed government investigation into the plastic guns, and their origins, had concluded and the indictments had been handed down, Torricelli would have the right' to buy back the business at the price he originally sold it to them for, plus the cost of any capital improvements. In the meantime, they were free to run it the way they saw fit, providing that the current employees were given first crack at the jobs they had held under Paul's administration.

A good hour after sequestering themselves in the little booth, they shook hands on their agreement and emerged, grinning, to inform the astonished trio of dock workers that the business was under new ownership. The consternation, not to mention embarrassment, at the welcome they had given the now-owners created an uncomfortable silence, which Roger was happy to let them wallow in for several moments before Vince assured them that all was forgiven and told them to call out for beer and pizza while they discussed the way the day to day operations of the business were conducted.

Torricelli departed, taking the handwritten agreement with him to have it converted into the appropriate legal format, promising to send along copies to the Long Island house for their approval. It was also time, he informed them, that they put together an office in the city, where these sorts of business arrangements could be hammered out in relative comfort.

They assured him they were working on it, then gathered the small group of troops and elicited a general outline of the average working day. It was quickly apparent that Mitchell Hanley, finally introduced in his entirety, while the youngest and least experienced one of the three, was also the brightest. Vince and Roger both kept that in mind for future reference as they got the detailed account of the usual day from the men. Vince was reasonably sure that things were being conducted in a straight forward way that would provide very little for the FBI or ATF to get their claws into, especially when Torricelli's name had been removed from the records as owner. Still, he was inclined to observation, and told Roger he intended to spend the bulk of the week on the docks, doing just that. Lococco was not especially pleased, though he conceded that it was a wise precaution, considering the money they would be investing, and earning, and the trouble they could bring down on themselves, if all was not as it seemed. He agreed, on the condition that Vince bring D'Arrigo along as a precaution.

It was late afternoon when they finally left the city and started back out to Long Island. Vince had spent the bulk of the drive on the phone with McPike, outlining the day's events and getting an ear-full concerning his recklessness at involving himself in one of Torricelli's rackets. Vince laughed, telling him that, after ten years, it was high time Frank started trusting Vinnie's instincts. The silence on the other end of the phone when Vince told him about the plastic guns and Torricelli's disinclination to let them hit the streets served to prove his point.

"When I have an idea what's going on, I'll raise the red flag and you can unleash the ATF," Vince told Frank, in conclusion.

"Isn't that likely to put a crimp in your cover?" Frank had asked sarcastically.

"Torricelli and the rest of them know that Roger is wanted by the C.I.A.. We just inferred that he — we — had some connections inside the D.O.J. that could help us deflect attention from him as long as his name wasn't associated with the docks."

"Very smooth," was Frank's reluctant praise. "Just make sure you or Lococco make the call-in with Lifeguard."

"No problem," Vinnie replied. "You got some guys on Tracy?"

"Yeah," McPike answered. "Despite the fact that it is _clear_ breach of department policy, she has a pair of shadows."

"Breach of policy, my ass, Frank. As far as the OCB rank-and-file is concerned, Roger, Tracy and I are all prime targets for investigation, or we will be, soon. The whole point of this exercise is to create a criminal empire without actually committing the crimes. Well, we just got our foot in the door today. That should justify the assignment of a couple of tails." Vince was unsympathetic to McPike's complaints.

They argued for several more minutes before Vince finished the conversation by simply hanging up on the Regional Director after interrupting a diatribe to wish him a good evening.

Lococco grinned at him as Vince put his cell phone back in a coat pocket. "I'm a bad influence on you," he laughed.

"We've always been prone to squabbles. But we usually kiss and make up when he cools off," Vince grinned back.

Mitchell Hanley clocked out, shrugging into his jacket as he refilled the dog's water bowl and ensured there was food out for him. He locked the postern door in the main warehouse doors, and bent his head into the wind off the harbor, wrinkling his nose at the reek of rotting seaweed, sewage and dead things that swept in with the breeze. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he made for his battered pick-up and got in, starting the temperamental old vehicle and letting it warm up as he took a cell phone out of the glove box. He dialed the number from memory, waiting as it rang. 

"Sailor Hardware, Walt Hanley speaking."

"Agent seven-six nine-seven, Ident procedure: finance section, the Wall Street Journal. Option, split, IPO," he said brusquely.

"Hidey-ho, Mitch. How's my boy?" was the cheerful response.

"Hold on to your hat, Pops. There's a copula new players in town and they just took over Paul Torricelli's marine operations, effective immediately."

"Shit! How many bodies are we gonna find when I send the boys down?" was the disbelieving question.

"Not a one. It was one of the slickest hand-offs I've ever seen. I'd better have an F-2-F with Rapisardo," Mitch said. "He's gonna want the details personally. Just tell him some new blood named Vince Terranova and Roger Lococco bought the business today. Terranova is gonna be camped out here for the week, observing'. Seems he ran a Jersey dock set-up for some Atlantic City goomba a few years back."

"Which one?" was the enquiry. 

"Don't know," Mitch replied. "I'll keep you posted."

"You do that, kid. Stay clear of the high-rollers till Rapisardo can meet with you. You gonna be home tonight?"

"Leave it on voice mail. I'll check in for the meet. I'm spozed to meet Sammy and Jay at the Capstan for a beer in fifteen minutes. They're pretty rattled with this whole thing, let me tell you," Mitchell said.

"Okay. Check in with me when you get home tonight, whenever that is."

"Sure thing, Pops." Hanley ended the call and put the ancient truck in gear, backing out of the parking space in a cloud of blue smoke.

Leon Rapisardo turned up the collar of his raincoat to keep the wind off his neck and shifted his weight from one foot to the other impatiently. Late night meetings with his field agent were a virtual guarantee of an argument with his wife. As a result, he tried to avoid them whenever possible, but he had to admit, however reluctantly, that this particular turn of circumstances warranted a meeting. If the little punk would just show up on time, for a change.

"Hey, Leo," Hanley greeted him, walking past him as he clapped a hand on Rapisardo's shoulder.

"Hey, yourself, smiley. Your watch broken or what?"

"Don't start with me," Mitchell grinned. "So, what's the word on the new guys?"

"Plenty," Rapisardo grunted, handing over a sheaf of folders.

Hanley took them, glancing at the thickness of the files. "I may be a speed-reader, but I think it's a little late in the day for this kinda homework assignment. You got the Cliff notes?" 

Rapisardo's teeth flashed white in his dark face. "Always the smart-ass, huh?" he commented with reluctant affection as he took the folders back. "Vincent M. Terranova. Made quite the name for himself in Atlantic City about ten years ago. Seems he picked a fight with one of the then-bosses of Atlantic City, Sonny Steelgrave. They beat the shit outta each other, then Sonny offered him a job. They hit it off, and within six months, he was Steelgrave's favorite wiseguy, and his right hand. When Steelgrave got into it with Paul Patrice from Brooklyn and Mack Mahoney from Philly, Terranova was pretty much the only major player who walked away from the federal dragnet that put some of the biggest mob names in the Eighties into the federal pen — or a grave." He rolled his head on his neck to ease the crick in the muscles. "Terranova has been working operations all over the place in the last ten years, mostly not in the mob, with a couple of exceptions. The Feds have been a day late and a dollar short with this guy since the get-go. They've shut down everything he's gotten running, but they've never put him inside for any serious time since he first got busted running bootleg smokes up and down the East Coast."

"So maybe, we're the ones who'll get close enough to the guy to bring him down," Hanley suggested with a hungry grin. "I've been marking time in Torricelli's operation for almost a year, and I haven't gotten anywhere near the man. It's like trying to hunt moose in the Sahara. I can't hit what isn't there."

"Yeah, well cool your jets, Rocket Man. Terranova married Steelgrave's niece a couple of weeks ago, in the mob social event of the season. Seems the man has a knack for picking his relatives, too. His mother married Rudy Aiuppo about seven or eight years ago. Aiuppo is pushing the mob to make him a _cappo_ in Brooklyn. And now that he's hooked up with this Roger Lococco guy, he's got himself a powerbase that may just make him the best candidate since Brod and Castellano fell outta favor."

"Whoa! I want this guy, Leo. He's the first worthwhile target I've had in my sights since I started this gig. So who's Lococco?"

"A real bad-ass. Ex-Special Forces, ex-C.I.A.. Served three tours in Nam, then got recruited into the Company as an assassin. One of the best, apparently. He worked all kinds of shady covert ops for the next fifteen years, till he got mixed up in a C.I.A. plot to overthrow the nutcase in charge of this little island in the Caribbean called Isle Pavot. He ratted out the operation to a Senate Investigating Committee, and got a termination sanction put on his head for his troubles. Officially, he was listed as presumed dead' after an explosion took out his boat, right after he testified. He turned up in Terranova's company last winter. Seems they met ten years ago while they worked for some industrialist named Mel Profitt. Profitt wound up dead at his sister's hands and Lococco walked away with a chunk of the guy's business. He's made Terranova a full partner, and looks like they're open for business in New York."

"I _gotta_ have these guys, Leo. Let me work em!" Hanley pleaded. "I'm in the perfect position to get their attention!"

"I'll run it by the R.D. and see what he thinks. It'll depend on how big a pair of players he figures these two are, whether he wants to risk putting you inside their operation." Rapisardo answered, less than enthusiastically, envisioning a long series of late-night meetings, and even later-night fights with the missus, if Hanley was granted his request for a shot at the brass ring. "In the meantime, keep your eyes open. Don't get pushy, but if any useful bits of information drop outta the sky this week, let your Lifeguard know."

Hanley nodded. "Tell the R.D. this may be his golden opportunity to get an agent inside a new operation on the ground floor. And with me in place, getting other guys in will be a hellova lot easier."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll tell him. But he's been doin' the job a whole lot longer than you, kiddo. If he says no', he's gonna mean no'. Neither of us are graced with the big picture." Rapisardo put the files under one arm and smacked Mitchell on the shoulder. "Get some sleep, super-mole."

The irony was not lost on McPike as he skimmed Leon Rapisardo's report of his meeting with his field agent. Vince had been completely correct in his assertion that his activities would be coming up on rank-and-file OCB agents' radar. That the first one to spot it would be Mitchell Hanley struck him as somehow karmic. The young agent had some of the same natural instinct for undercover work that Terranova had. Allowing Hanley to attempt a penetration of Vinnie's infant organization would prove interesting. And assigning an agent to Vince's group was inevitable. It might as well be Hanley. He looked up to meet Rapisardo's look. "Give him the okay," he told the field supervisor. "if he sees an opportunity, tell him to take it. But the agenda is _mine_," he stipulated. "We're interested in who Terranova and Lococco are doing business with. That's where I want Mitchell putting his attention. We're trying to establish links, here, flesh out the bones. Terranova was brought in as a contractor by the mob to see whether there's someone out there looking to cut the New York organization off at the knees. The power structure has been coming apart in the last four or five years, for no obvious reason. The dons with big money tied up in the city are starting to get a little jumpy, and Terranova apparently thinks that someone may be masterminding a takeover bid. If he's right, we're sitting on a time bomb. Our best bet is to stand back and see if he's right, and can figure out who's pulling the strings."

Rapisardo's eyes widened. "Shit," he breathed, caught completely off guard by the potential chaos that something of this nature portended. "Well, that'll make Mitch's day. He's an over-eager overachiever. This'll give him something to sink his teeth into. It'll be real interesting to see if he's as good as he thinks he is. What are we goin' to do about the plastic guns he turned up on the docks?"

McPike considered for a moment, unsure how much to reveal. "Turns out Lococco may have some connections inside the D.O.J.. Terranova and he got word to someone, who got word to the ATF. They'll be moving in in a day or two, as soon as they can figure out whether the owners are likely to come back for them. Obviously they want the whole thing if they can get it."

"_They're turning them over to the government_?" Rapisardo's astonishment was total.

"Seems it may actually have been Torricelli's idea. He didn't like the idea of weapons obviously designed for use by terrorists being traced to his docks. Our legals think his hand-off of the marine business gives him the distance to let the law handle the guns without dragging him into it."

"Seems like Mitch has just walked into one hellova situation," Rapisardo observed grimly, seeing a future of domestic disharmony looming.

"That it does," McPike agreed, equally grimly.

ÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅ

David Piccolini logged onto his computer and checked his bootlegged e-mail account. The spam filters were working, finally, he was pleased to see, and he skimmed the half dozen messages from his online acquaintances. None of them was especially interesting, barring one invitation to participate in an online gaming session after-hours. It seemed that _Splatter-Shot'_ had finally succeeded in hacking into the R & D mainframe at Sega.

He pulled up the search engine he had cobbled together out of code pilfered from Microsoft and Netscape, and began searching the Associated Press databases for any stories about Susan Profitt. During the course of the last few weeks, he had found himself becoming increasingly interested by the woman. Part of it was that she was pretty, and he admitted that he had enough of the geek in him to have a hard time connecting with pretty women face to face in the real world. But the more he found out about her, the more fascinated he became. He had gone through all the records the hospital had on her, an extensive collection, since she had been a patient there for over ten years. She had been admitted at the request of a man named Terranova, after her mental collapse following the death of her brother. The details were what made the case so interesting. Lurid, even. 

The general suspicion was that she had murdered her brother by means of a lethal injection of narcotics. It was no wonder she'd checked out, he thought. When she had been admitted, she had been diagnosed with an hysterical pregnancy, and a host of psychoses that he couldn't have pronounced if he'd wanted too. She had, in fact, been sterilized in childhood by the Iowa Youth Authority when it had become clear to officialdom that she and her brother were having an incestuous affair, so pregnancy had been out of the question. He admitted that these titillating little factoids had some bearing on his fascination with the woman. She had appeared in his wet dreams nightly for weeks, now.

That and the fact that she was unimaginably wealthy served to enliven his fantasy life. He had made a point of seeking her out unobtrusively, using his breaks as an excuse to leave the confines of the basement, ostensibly to eat his lunch or drink his coffee in the sunshine and fresh air of the grounds. Since she made a habit of occupying a bench at the edge of the extensive lawns every afternoon when the weather permitted, it was a convenient fiction that allowed him access to her in a way the hospital administrators could not object too. He was pleased that, on those occasions when he arrived first, she had begun to seek him out, even varying from her usual bench when he sat elsewhere.

They had gradually to converse, casually, about mundane topics. Speaking to her was like talking to Rip Van Winkle. Between the fact that she was nearly sixteen years older than he was, and the fact that she had spent the last ten years in a waking coma, she had appallingly little idea of the way the world worked in the late Nineteen-nineties. She was clearly interested in his descriptions of the world outside the hospital, especially his descriptions of the explosive growth and changes in the computer field. It was during these conversations that he became convinced that the number on the I.Q. line of her records was probably an underestimation. Her grasp on the implications of what he told her was immediate, and frequently astonishingly insightful, given that she hadn't sat at a keyboard in a decade. He had laughed when she told him that her brother had run his multi-billion dollar business from a yacht using a Macintosh that had been state-of-the-art at the time. When he told her the computing power of the old machines was barely sufficient to operate a coffee maker these days, he had seen her interest kindle. At last, today, he had offered to show her the brave new world of computing. He expected that he would be receiving a summons from Dr. Spencer any time now.

ÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅ

Vince and D'Arrigo, in the uniform of the docks — faded jeans, T-shirts and leather jackets — arrived before six a.m. at the piers, well ahead of everyone but Mitchell Hanley. They caught the man by surprise as they stepped through the postern door into the warehouse. Sandy, the dog, was the only warning Mitch had that he had company.

"What, you sleep here or something?" Terranova asked him as he approached.

"Nah, but someone's gotta make sure the dog gets breakfast. I'm low man on the totem pole around here, so I get the job," Hanley shrugged, masking his surprise that a potential Mafia don would bestir himself at this hour, and come prepared to do an honest day's work, by the looks of the clothes. "Want some coffee, Mr. Terranova?" he asked. "There's a pot going in the office. Mugs are in there, too," he added to D'Arrigo's back as the man headed for glass-windowed little office.

"So what do you do around here, besides moving cargo?" Vince asked the younger man.

Mitch laughed. "Whatever needs doing," he answered. "Usually whatever no one else'll do. The scut work, mostly," he said with a shrug.

Terranova took the steaming mug D'Arrigo handed him and sipped from it. "Seems like a waste of talent," he observed. "Why'd you decide to check out the cargo?"

Hanley hesitated. "A gut feeling," he admitted. "I mean, why would you want to put a shipment of _nuts_ under lock and key?"

"Amazing how few people actually pay attention to those kinds of little details," Vince said, not kidding. "I think you may wanna reconsider your job options." He watched Hanley's quickening interest. This one had ambition and intelligence enough to make an excellent employee. Vince planned on keeping an eye on him during the week, in an effort to discover whether his instincts about the man were correct.

"I'm open to suggestions," Hanley agreed. "This wasn't exactly what I had in mind as a career when I dropped out of law school."

"Law school, huh? What happened?" Vince asked, speculations of his own running through his head.

Mitchell shrugged. "Ran out of money before I ran out of classes, and I tend to have a short attention span. So I went looking for something to pay the rent. Maybe I'll go back, someday. Finish up the degree."

Vince nodded. "My wife is an attorney. She was teaching at Georgetown last semester. I'm not sure whether she's licensed in New York, but I guess she'll probably end up being, eventually, if we stay here long enough."

"Where was she practicing?" Mitch asked, interested.

"Washington state, in Seattle. She worked in the Attorney General's office as a prosecutor."

"Whoa! I guess she knows her stuff," Hanley replied, wondering at the irony of the fates that had put the niece of a mob boss into law — as a prosecutor.

"Yeah, she does," Vince agreed, distracted as Sammy and Jay appeared through the postern gate in the warehouse door.

With the arrival of the dock foreman and his second-in-command, the day began. Vince began by going through the docking records for any information about the ship tied up out front, and for the owners of the cargo in the secured storage area. He coaxed the scant details out of the ancient computer on the desk, then spent hours going through the paper files for any other information he could glean. His investigation made it obvious that the business was in fact largely legit. Very little black market or other illegalities could be inferred from what he could find. When he had accumulated everything there was, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed the Lifeguard. "Hey, Uncle Mike," he greeted Dan. "You still got your connections with the Port Authority?"

"Hello to you, too, Vince," the Lifeguard replied cynically. "What're you up to? Nice of you to check in. Your Aunt Cecilia's fine, too, but she says you owe her a postcard."

"Alright, alright," Vince grinned. "Sorry I haven't called. We only got back from San Francisco three days ago, and Tracy's in D.C. this week, packing up her stuff. Roger and I just got into the shipping business. We picked up a company called Murakama Marine out on the piers, and we need to find out everything we can about the tub we've got parked out front. We've got a mystery cargo and absentee shippers we need to track down."

"I'll see what I can get. What's the name of the ship?"

"The Persephone," Vince told him. "Out of Athens, it looks like."

"Okay," Lifeguard said, keying in the information and waiting as the database digested the request and spit out a preliminary report. "Looks like it's got Panamanian registry, owned by a freight transportation company called Lipney Transport which is owned by a holding company out of the Bahamas. Looks like a shell game. I'll do some digging and get back to you with the details. You want em by e-mail?"

"Yeah, that'll work. Talk to you later, Mike. Give Aunt Cecilia a kiss for me," Vince grinned.

"Yeah, right," Lifeguard grunted as he disconnected the call.

Vince related this to Roger when he and D'Arrigo picked him up downtown that evening. Lococco had spent his day investigating office space to headquarter _Pangea_ in, in Manhattan. There were a handful of possibilities that he wanted Vince to check on the following morning before hitting the docks.

By the time Tracy returned to New York the following weekend, _Pangea_ had signed a lease for downtown office space on the forty ninth floor of a glass and steel skyscraper on Madison Avenue, the ATF had removed the guns from the docks, and the ship had been impounded by the Port Authority. Vince had been increasingly impressed by Hanley and had had both Lococco and the Lifeguard run background checks on him. He'd had a few dust-ups with the law, and spent six months in a Connecticut state prison for grand theft in association with a chop-shop that had been busted by a local task force. That was the bulk of what they had been able to discover about him, barring the fact that his family was dead, killed when he was in his early twenties in a multi-car pileup on the Jersey turnpike.

He had kept his nose clean, since, and Lococco had confirmed that he was perhaps a year and a half from completing a law degree. Vince was almost ready to recruit the man, knowing that someone with better-than-average common sense and drive would be a valuable asset. Lococco concurred, though he was wary of pulling hirelings off the streets, so to speak.

"The last time I hired someone on impulse, he turned out to be a federal agent," Lococco reminded him, grinning.

Vince grinned back. "Well, that didn't turn out so bad, did it?"

Lococco glowered menacingly, his eyes crinkling at the corners, belying the sinister set of his features. "Easy to say, ten years after the fact," he retorted.

It was two weeks later before Vince could get Lococco's agreement on bringing Hanley in as one of the security people, and it was the younger man's facility with both computers and dogs that convinced Roger. Hanley was promptly offered the position of dog wrangler and upon his acceptance, was sent out to Oregon to Lococco's trainer friend for a crash course in working with guard dogs.

Tracy occupied herself by working on the decorating of the house and rounding up her West Coast friends for the civil ceremony she had arranged for the end of August. She spent a fair amount of time shuttling back and forth to D.C. to visit her mother, whose brief resurgence of health had waned. She became the unofficial designated contact with the D.O.J., meeting regularly with Beckstead and McPike to update them on what was happening. 

The fact that Castellano had still not resurfaced was beginning to seriously worry the OCB directors, and they insisted that Tracy's D.C. visits be monitored. The first small break in his disappearance coincided with the first tentative progress in linking the failed mob negotiations. A week before the civil ceremony was scheduled, the first rumors of Castellano's continued presence in the city began to surface. 

Even this, however, could not distract Tracy from her increasing restlessness. She was edgy, irritable, and rubbed increasingly the wrong way by Lococco's persistent cynicism and tendency to dismiss her out of hand when he wasn't spending his time watching her covertly. She had become hyper-sensitized to his presence, his moods, his perverse mixture of attraction and revulsion. Even the fact that he had taken up residence in the goon wing, on the upper floor of the south wing in the room farthest from the master suite irritated her. She had fully expected him to occupy the suite opposite hers and Vinnie's. The fact that he hadn't both relieved her and angered her, and the complete irrationality of this only upset her farther. Their sniping had become chronic, seriously wearing at Vince, and she was at a loss as to what to do about it. 

She felt as if she were about to burst into tears half the time, and the other half, she was so angry it was all she could do not to take it out on everyone around her. The men had begun to steer a wide path around her, having taken to rotating babysitting duty so that none of them were stuck with her regularly. The fact that she was at loose ends and the reality of her mother's approaching death, with the void that would leave in her life, were simply compounding the problem. She had taken to having regular conversations with the Lifeguard, his nonjudgmental and frequently wise comments acting as a reality check. He had made her the same offer he said he had made Vince so many years before: when she felt the need to vent, off the record, he disengaged the tape machines linked to his phone lines and simply let her talk things through.

Her days were empty of anything meaningful, her sole contributions to the enterprise, thus far, limited to her skills as an amateur interior decorator and her name. It rankled. And it was the subject of several of the increasing number of arguments she picked with her husband. She simply could not convince him that she was capable of far more than being purely decorative. Or more truthfully, could not convince him that it was _essential_ for her to be more than decorative. Protecting her was pointless if her life was to consist of aimless wanderings around the house and grounds, with no real work, no way of helping to bring the operation to a successful conclusion. She had come to see his refusal even to consider risking her safety like a brick wall that she kept crashing into.

And so she drifted, secluding herself increasingly in the master suite and reading when she wasn't trying futilely to work off her mood on the plethora of gym equipment that filled the solarium. The only bright spot was the time she spent with the two Alsacian shepherds Mitchell Hanley had returned with from Oregon. 

The dogs, Othello and Iago, were well-behaved, exquisitely trained bodyguards. And unlike the human ones that cluttered her home, they enjoyed her company. She spent a fair amount of time playing with them, and when Hanley had offered to teach her to work with them, she had accepted. She had also refused, after the second week, to confine them outside when they were not on duty. As pack animals, she had argued, they needed to be included in the household population, to recognize and accept each person there, and to work their way into the pack hierarchy, which she could see as plainly as the dogs could. Not unexpectedly, Lococco had fought her bitterly on this. They were employees, he had informed her, not pets. To her surprise, Vince had backed her up, refusing to keep them penned in the kennel outside, insisting that they have the run of the house and grounds.

Lococco had backed down, finally, though clearly unhappy with this new arrangement. Even the conversation she had overheard between the two had not completely dimmed her sense of having won a victory:

"Vince, you're missing the point," Roger snarled. "These are weapons, not pets! Letting her treat them like lap dogs -"

"Isn't going to change their training! Mitch will go on working with them like he was taught, and they'll be on duty every night, with the night patrol. But if Tracy wants them loose, then that's the way it's gonna be. Besides, she's right. I've watched enough PBS to know they'll do better by us if they recognize everyone in the house. And Tracy needs this one, Rog. She's miserable and if it helps, then we'll do it that way." Vince's tone brooked no refusal. 

Lococco was brought up short by the realization that this was a note he was hearing more and more often from Vince. The tone was that of command. Unconscious, instinctive. Terranova was coming into his own. And as long as this operation continued, it was his game, and his rules. Lococco had been a soldier long enough to recognize a command decision when he heard it. "Okay, Buckwheat," he said at last. "Have it your way. Or hers." 

"And another thing, Rog. Stop going out of your way to bait her. She's stuck here, and she's getting cabin fever. You provoking her every chance you get is _not_ helping." Vince said, resignedly. 

"Well, then let her out, Vinnie. You can't keep her locked up out here forever," Roger pointed out, sarcastically. "And it's not like she doesn't give as good as she gets."

Tracy had not lingered to hear the rest of this argument, briefly comforted by the fact that Vince _knew_ the toll the restrictions he had placed on her were taking. And that he at least made an attempt to call Roger to heel. Instead, she went to find Mitchell and the dogs.

Vince sighed. "I don't want her out in the world until we have a line on Castellano. Roger, I don't want to put her at any more risk than I have to," he told Lococco.

"Vinnie, _life_ is about risk. She knew going into this that she was signing on for hazardous duty. That's what she said I do' to, Buckwheat." Roger refused to play into Vinnie's guilt trip. "And at least we know he's still in the city, somewhere. And based on that, we know one of the families is helping him. We'll track the bastard down."

"Not soon enough," Vinnie replied, running hands through his heavy mane and clasping his fingers around the back of his neck, wearily. "I know I can't keep her here much longer, or she's likely to castrate every one of us. I think you'd better find us someplace downtown as a back-up address."

"Probably a good idea," Roger agreed. "Then I can get the hell out of her way, once in awhile."

Vince sighed again, noisily. "I'm sorry, Roger. Life in a fishbowl stinks. Sometimes I wish I could lock the two of you in a room until you worked it out."

"Or until we killed each other," Roger answered bitterly. "Believe me, Buckwheat, you lock us in a room, and I can't be held responsible for my behavior. It'll either be murder, or rape."

"Nah, not rape. You've got that silver tongue to fall back on. It'd be a seduction. And right now, I'm almost willing to let you try. Anything to keep the fights to a dull roar."

"Don't even joke about it, Vince," Roger said, grimly, eyes dark with the pain that so frequently lingered there.

"Who's joking?" Vince answered, equally grim. 

"I am _not_ going to seduce your wife," Lococco snarled. 

"I'm not saying you'll do it on purpose. And I'm not saying she'll let you. _She_ may wind up doing the seducing," Vince told him. "I'm the one in bed with her when she comes down offa one of her arguments with you, but I'm not necessarily the one she's making love too!"

"I don't need to be hearing this, Vince," Roger said softly, allowing the reflexive anger to overwhelm the sexual stirring in his body at this uninvited confidence. "She's not a one night stand."

Vince turned, blue eyes impaling Lococco mercilessly. "No, she's not. And if you ever sleep with her, it had better not be as one. You'd better mean it, Roger. Because if you hurt her, I'll kill you." He held Roger's eyes for a long moment, then turned on his heel and left the master library.

Lococco stood staring after him, unable to string two thoughts together, stunned by what Vince had just said, and its' implications. He knew with certainty that Vince would not lie to him about something like this. The knowledge that he, Roger, somehow moved Tracy, even if she couldn't articulate it, or allow herself to feel it, left him shaking. The fact that Vince had begun to treat Roger's attraction to Tracy as something a great deal more than simple arousal, and Vinnie's acceptance of what he clearly felt was the inevitable outcome only amplified the trembling in his muscles. Roger was completely shaken by this series of revelations. His brain felt as though it had somehow jumped its' tracks and was tearing across the countryside in some unknown direction with no way of slowing the headlong rush, or controlling it's destination. And every direction led to Tracy Steelgrave-Terranova.

None of the usual meditation strategies he relied on to center his thinking and focus his mind had any effect that night. Though he achieved a trance state with more ease than usual, the imagery it unreeled before his hyper-conscious mind was new, disturbing and of a clarity and brilliance like gems scattered across black velvet. Each life the house sheltered blazed with color and fire, each different, unique, revealed to his minds' eye and senses he had never had such clear recourse to. Intuition told him who each spark of light corresponded to in the waking world as he drifted the currents of the night air, taking his bearings. He walked the corridors of the house like a ghost, unseen, unperceived by the sleeping residents, drawn like a homing pigeon upward and northward toward the master suite as he got his bearings, searching for the two lives most dear to him.

They lay, topaz and sapphire, against the seamless dark of eternity, ephemeral in their luminosity, fleeting, and yet all the more precious for it. Two lives, inextricably entwined, lives that anchored his, and to his astonishment, aware of him at some instinctive level he had never seen in the years he had undertaken these journeys. Their brilliance reached for him, curled around his own onyx-darkness, their light, their heat warming him like a brazier on a winter night as they welcomed him. It was a heat that burned him, scorching his psyche, singing his heart with the strength of emotions he had so little acquaintance with, sending him fleeing outward into the welcome, impersonal cold brilliance of the stars, unable to face that flame.

Vince woke that night, his wife snug against his side, and lay staring at the shadows on the ceiling of their bedroom without seeing them. He had taken a calculated risk in telling Roger of Tracy's deeply subconscious response to him, knowing that it would force Lococco to an awareness of the instinctive, self-protective callousness with which he treated her. And that changing that might well result in Lococco's successful seduction of his wife. The idea that Tracy could need, want, something more than what he could give her, hurt. But watching her and Lococco tear each other to pieces out of that shared frustrated need hurt even more. It was this that had decided him on a course of action. He had played his hand in the hope that it would force a change in Roger's thinking, and even more, in his behavior. Time would tell, he knew, praying that it worked, even as he prayed he was wrong.

He caressed the length of Tracy's thigh where it lay across his own, feeling her stir at his touch. He knew he had woken her when her hands found their way under the tank-top he wore, stroking his ribs, then drifted down to the waistband of his sweats. He rolled onto his side to face her, cupping her jaw in his hands and kissing her lightly, teasingly. He moved slowly, sliding her nightgown up her body and over her head as she sat up to allow him to undress her, then let her undress him in turn. He touched her in her entirety, gently, savoring her, lingering over her with a wistfulness she became gradually aware of. He felt her touch shift from gentle to one more insistent, more urgent, as she tried to break his mood. He refused to let her hurry him, taking his time over her, knowing he could not count on holding her this way if she once began to understand what she felt for Lococco. 

Tracy could not identify her husband's strange mood, and it made her uneasy, even as his explorations stirred her to her depths. He resisted her attempts to do likewise, catching her hands in his own and planting the lightest of kisses in her palms as he thwarted her reach for him. 

"Let me touch you, Trace," he murmured into her hand as he freed her, then resumed his slow, careful caresses. 

At a loss, she let him be, instead, contenting herself with what he roused in her. No one had ever touched her as he did, with an intimacy that went so far beyond simple sex. Sex was anything but simple with him, wearing as many personas as he did. But this one was new, and the sadness in his eyes when she met them broke her heart. "Love me, Vinnie," she whispered to that ache in him.

"Always, Tracy," he answered as he filled her.

The dream was gone. Irretrievably lost with the conscious realization of his desire for the woman who had triggered it. In the months since the wedding, Roger had not once been woken by its' erotic footprint in his sleeping mind. Even that surcease had gone. The only way left for him to indulge that desire was in full consciousness of what he did, who he held so intimately in his thoughts. To imagine that it was her touch and not his own that too-briefly met that need. Vinnie's words to him in the master library underlay his masturbation with the tantalizing, tormenting possibility of a different reality. A reality he had no idea how to bring about. The knowledge that, virtually from their first meeting, he had both consciously and unconsciously striven to hurt her as he hurt, instinctive in his need to hide his total vulnerability, taunted him. To undo that damage might very well be beyond his ability. Simply to keep from inflicting any more might prove equally impossible. And every instinct he had told him his very life might depend on being able to do just that.

"So has anyone made any progress with tracing Castellano?" Vince asked, glancing from Aiuppo to Capuzi.

"Not a great deal, but we have begun to narrow the possibilities," Rudy answered.

Lococco leaned back in his chair, fingering the tumbler of grappa on the dining table in front of him. "How narrow?" he asked.

Capuzi scowled. "He is getting help from one of the Families, this much we all know," he began. "But it is beginning to look as though it may be the Genoveses."

Everyone but Lococco stirred restlessly at this. "We don't need them involving themselves in this," Aiuppo said coldly. They risk a war with all the other families in the city if they pursue it."

"Why is Genovese a problem? We cap a few of his guys to show we're serious, and get one of them to take us to Castellano," Roger observed, knowing he was going to provoke a reaction.

"You do not kill a Genovese soldier unless you are willing to go to war," Capuzi answered, dismissively. "You know nothing of our ways." 

"The head of the Genovese Family is the don of dons," Vince informed Roger. 

"You do not shoot his men unless you plan to shoot _all_ of them," Aiuppo added.

"Don't tempt me," Roger said coldly. "The longer Castellano avoids us, the better the likelihood that he'll find a way to screw us. Whether he comes after us himself or brings in outside muscle, he's not going to let it alone."

"No," Aiuppo agreed. "Chero and I have increased the bounty on him to a full million, if he is brought before us alive. Even some of Genovese's men will be tempted by a price like that. He will be brought to us, Ruggiero. Eventually."

"Let's just hope he doesn't put a bullet in Vinnie before then," Roger snapped, dissatisfied with this, but knowing there was nothing he could do about it. Even the OCB had not been able to track the man. He was obviously under _someone's_ protection, Genovese or otherwise. What eluded him was, why the don of dons would risk a city-wide conflagration to protect one man. It made no sense. He voiced that opinion.

"Thomas Eboli is Brandon's Godfather," Capuzi replied. "That is a sacred bond. A blood tie. He is obligated to provide help if one of his made men asks. It is the way."

"Great," Roger groaned. "Vinnie, this stinks. We can't protect you against the whole goddamned Genovese gang."

"You won't have to," Capuzi assured him. "Thomas is not so stupid as all that. He will protect Brandon where he can, but he will not necessarily make any of Brandon's vendettas his own."

"So there are limits to this code' of yours?" Roger said, nominally relieved.

"Oh, most definitely," Capuzi affirmed. "Brandon will have help avoiding us, but not in trying to kill Vincenzo."

"What'll it take to drive a wedge between Castellano and Eboli?" Roger asked.

Aiuppo shrugged. "It would take some act of betrayal of Thomas's trust, something that would endanger the Genovese organization. And Brandon is not foolish enough to risk that."

This tidbit of information rattled in Roger's brain, unwilling to be filed away. He worried at it briefly before letting it go, knowing his subconscious was likely to process whatever it was about this that was important, allowing it to resurface when needed. He stirred restlessly in his chair at Capuzi's massive dining table, watching Terranova from the corner of his eye as Vince sipped contemplatively at his grappa.

"How is your investigation progressing?" Capuzi asked, changing the subject.

"It's still in the theoretical stage," Vince replied slowly. "But Paul Torricelli's problem on the docks looks like it may be connected. I haven't gotten all the way to the bottom of the deck that was stacked against him, but it looks like the gun shipment that got abandoned' on his piers was a set-up to bring down federal weight. It was only cause Rog and I stuck our noses into it and brought the law in ourselves that it didn't work. Paul would have been up to his ass in federal charges by now. I want you to put the word out to the other dons to keep sharp. If someone was willing to try that kind of a game on Paul, they're probably willing to try it on everyone else."

Capuzi leaned back in his chair, expression grim. "You are sure?"

"Not entirely," Vince admitted, "but it's sure starting to shape up that way."

"This is not good, Vincenzo," Rudy said unhappily.

"No kidding," Vince retorted. "If we're right, this guy, or group, or whatever, is willing to put a lot of money and effort into planning these little surprises for us. I don't like this at all. And I'm liking it less and less with every piece of the puzzle we're finding."

"I think it would be a good idea if the families kept Vince and me up to speed on any weirdness that comes down on them. We're gonna want to monitor this _very_ closely," Roger told them.

"I'll be reporting to the whole group in a month, as a preliminary thing, but whatever it is that's going on is gonna take more than the rest of my six-month time frame to piece together. I'm not sure we wanna be hanging around to find out how this all ends," Vince told them bluntly, catching Lococco's quickly masked surprise. "Rog and I have business obligations of our own that are going begging."

"Vincenzo, you agreed to assist us in this," Rudy reminded him, disapproval evident in his voice.

"Assist, yes, but not give up everything else in my life. I hardly get to spend any time with my wife, between this -" he waved a hand in general indication of the situation, "and her in D.C. dealing with her mother's doctors for days at the time. I'm not going to commit to staying on until I've talked with her."

Capuzi frowned. "Vincenzo, the brotherhood has asked for your help. That is a commitment you cannot take lightly. You must tell your wife that that obligation takes precedence."

Vince laughed sharply. "With respect, don Capuzi, this is the tail end of the twentieth century, not the nineteenth. You don't _tell_ women anything. Besides, I didn't marry her to be my maid, I married her to be my partner."

Aiuppo scowled. "Surely she knows we need your help with this, Vincenzo. Has she _asked_ you to disregard your obligation to us?"

"You know she'd never do that, Rudy. She's Dave Steelgrave's daughter. She knows how the game is played. This is my choice. My decision. But she's miserable here, and I don't like seeing her that way. I owe her better. And frankly, that commitment is more important to me."

Roger listened to the old dons' attempts to persuade Vince with half an ear. That Terranova was willing to walk away from an unresolved situation had surprised him deeply. And he was clearly serious. Roger could not help wondering whether part of it wasn't a reaction to the tension between himself and Tracy. He remained silent through the rest of the conversation. It was not until he and Vince climbed into the little BMW that he voiced his thoughts.

"You want me outta here?" he asked.

"What?" Vince's tone was genuinely confused.

"I was paying attention, Buckwheat. I know you're worried about your wife. And you have this crazy idea that she and I -" he paused, uncertain how to phrase what he meant.

"For one thing, it isn't some crazy idea'," Vince replied into that pause. "You're in love with my wife, whether you believe it or not. And I'm pretty sure she returns the sentiment. But that's not what's bugging me, Roger. This whole thing is starting to give me the same feeling I was getting at the end of the Profitt investigation. There's a conspiracy, here, somewhere. And it's scaring me that we're not getting a clearer picture of it by now. My gut instinct tells me to get the hell out of it, now, before someone I love gets hurt — or even killed."

Roger blinked at this casual dismissal of what to him seemed an insurmountable hurdle. "The Profitt school of sexual perversity," he muttered.

"The Profitts have nothing to do with this," Vince retorted, irritably. "The two of you are adults. You'll work it out. You'll have to, if we stay. That wasn't what I was worried about, Roger."

"Maybe it should be," Lococco muttered under his breath. "So what is the real problem, then?" he asked.

"I just told you. We stand a good chance of getting bloody on this, and I don't want you, or Trace — or me — winding up in the hospital, or worse." Vince met Lococco's skeptical glance challengingly. "And I'm not sure that doing the job' is worth that risk."

"That wasn't what you said when you got us into this in the first place," Roger observed.

"That's because two of the people I care the most about weren't walking on the edge of a meltdown. We can't afford the distraction, Rog. Whoever this is, they've probably figured out that we pose a threat. When they decide how much of one, they'll be coming after us. And if we haven't found a way to make it work between the three of us, they'll get us. I won't let that happen. And I can't pull this off without both you and 

Trace. So, no. I don't want you leaving. Either we all stay, or we all get out. The two of you are the brain trust, here." Vince was emphatic.

"Like hell, Vince. You were the one who spotted the pattern. You're the one with the expertise in this neighborhood. You've got better instincts than just about anyone I've ever worked with. You don't need me," Roger rebutted.

"You're wrong, Roger. I need you playing Devil's Advocate. I need you being your usual pain-in-the-ass self, bugging the guys about security. I need you to keep me straight, man. I _need_ you. Don't run out on me." Vince's entreaty was unmistakable.

Lococco glanced at him. The plea in the blue eyes that met his wrenched him. To have Vince ask this of him, in the full knowledge of what it could mean, to himself, to Vince, to Tracy, rocked him. That Vince trusted him so implicitly, and had not hesitated to admit his vulnerability, humbled him. "Okay, Buckwheat. I'll hang with it. But if things change, tell me." The smile Vince shot him was one of genuine relief.

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"So they have themselves a fixer'," Aleksei Turpasian stated, in the Russian of his native Odessa, easing the pressure of his wire-rimmed glasses as he rubbed the bridge of his beaky nose.

"So it seems, Aleksei. We do not yet know if it was chance, or if our plans were discovered. But these two stepped into Murakama at too fortuitous a time for me to be happy with the idea of it being a coincidence," was the reluctant agreement of his lieutenant, a graying bear of a man with a Cossack mustache and weary eyes.

"What do we know about them, Ivan?" Turpasian asked. "Are they connected?"

"We are working on that," came the reply. "Nicholai is checking with our contacts in the Genovese organization. But my instinct says yes." Ivan Berezov settled himself in the chair across from Turpasian, pouring a full tumbler of Schmirnoff from the open bottle on the table between them. 

"What about our plans for the little celebration' for Capuzi?" Turpasian let the spectacles settle back onto his nose, as he lifted his own glass.

Berezov snorted with laughter. "It is well past time that old goat retired' gracefully. With him out of the way, we should be able to get at his action without too much trouble. What do you have in mind for his party?"

Turpasian grinned. "A couple of carefully placed hollow-points," he told his man.

Berezov grinned back at him. 

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"She seems to have opened up to you to a remarkable degree," Dr. Spencer said to Piccolini as she waved him to a seat, resuming hers behind her desk.

He shrugged self-deprecatingly. "I figure she's just bored. And she's sure bright enough. She's not having any trouble with finding her way around the computer. You should let her try the internet, sometime. It'd help her catch up. I mean, she's been sorta outta it for a few years. She didn't even know Gianni Versace got his ass wasted."

"You _told_ her that?" Spencer asked, appalled. 

"Well, yeah. She was tellin' me about all these fancy parties she used to go to, all dressed up in designer duds'n stuff. You might wanna give her something to wear besides standard issue nightgowns," he suggested. "It might cheer her up."

"We'll take it under advisement," Spencer said, dazed, feeling as though the conversation had escaped her control somewhere along the line. "In the meantime, I think you're right, about getting her connected to the world as it is now, I mean. The problem is, you have been strictly prohibited from accessing the internet." 

"Well, technically, I'm not the one who'd be online," David pointed out.

"That's a spurious argument, David, and we both know it," Spencer snapped.

"All I'm sayin' is, I'd be glad to help if you want me too," he shrugged again, knowing better than to push his luck. "You just let me know."

Spencer considered this silently for several minutes, of two minds about the offer of help. On the one hand, she was disinclined to trust Piccolini even as far as she could throw him. But on the other, both his behavior and Susan Profitt's mental state had improved remarkably since the two had taken an interest in each other. There was nothing overtly inappropriate in that interest, either, as far as she had been able to determine, and she nodded, slowly, at last. "All right," she said finally. "But you're getting one warning, and one warning only. At the first hint of electronic funny-business, I'll shut you down, and you'll find yourself in front of your parole board faster than you can hack into the phone company's mainframe," she said grimly.

David raised his hands. "Hey, that's cool with me," he hastened to assure her. "Which computer do you want us to use?"

"I'll have IS set you up with internet access from your office," she said.

"Okay, but I could do it myself," he told her.

"I'm already aiding and abetting your breaking your parole," she told him. "Let's not make it any worse than we have too, shall we?"

"Whatever," he shrugged.

He left her office, barely able to conceal his glee, even in spite of having to hastily dismantle his unauthorized connections temporarily. He sought out Susan and flopped down next to her where she sat on a sofa in the solarium, reading some weighty tome on philosophy. She looked up as he hit the couch with a childish bounce. "We're in," he told her softly. The sparkle in her blue eyes made his heart race. "Spencer is gonna set it up."

"Wonderful," she said simply, the look in her eyes promising far more than that one word would ordinarily encompass.

Two days later, Piccolini clocked out as usual, and got onto his motorcycle, roaring off as he generally did at quitting time. This time, however, rather than heading for the dingy apartment on the outskirts of the town Lakeview called home, he circumnavigated the perimeters of the hospital until he found a secluded stretch of road as far from the main gates as possible. Concealing the bike behind the Rhododendron hedge along the road, he scaled the chain link fence easily, and dropped to the dirt inside the hospital grounds. It was hardly a high-security facility, and its' defenses were designed more to keep people in than out. He made his way through the domesticated woodlands that insulated the hospital from the harsh world outside its' gates and strolled back into the building that Susan's room was in, careful to avoid high-traffic halls and common rooms on his way to her. He knocked softly at her door, ear against the wood as he listened for her reply. The door opened, and, startled, he nearly tumbled to the floor. Susan caught him by the arm, steadying him as she drew him inside, shutting the door behind them.

He looked around the room, curiously. It was the first time he had seen a patient's room, and he was impressed. Lakeview clearly spared no expense in maintaining the illusion that its' charges lived normal lives within its' walls. The room was elegantly appointed, large, and well-lit, the late afternoon sunshine streaming in through the three large casement windows that lined the outside wall. "Nice," he said, and turned to face Susan.

"Yes, it is," she said, eyeing him appraisingly, not meaning the room. She smiled as he blushed. Advancing on the suddenly bashful young man, she ran the fingers of one hand in a waving path down his chest. He was shorter than she was by an inch or so, and fine-boned, slender. He reminded her of Roger Lococco in his build, though he was not as well muscled. "Very nice," she added, brushing her lips across his.

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Tracy shifted her weight from one foot to the other, impatiently. "We're going to be late, Mitch. Let's get a move-on!"

Hanley sighed as he finished wiping down the bright-work on the Benz. "Mr. Lococco told me to make sure the car was washed before we left," he told her. "Just let me get changed, and we're outta here."

"I don't know who the hell he thinks he's trying to impress," Tracy snapped. "Go! Get some dry clothes on."

"Yes, _ma'am_," he retorted as he tossed his polishing cloth onto the pile of rags on the gravel beside the bucket and sponges, and headed for the house, jogging down the side path of the south wing to enter his room from the garden, through the French doors. When he emerged, barely five minutes later, he was clad in one of the suits Lococco had had fitted him for, struggling with his tie.

"Oh, let me," Tracy said, amused in spite of herself. She managed a creditable Windsor knot in seconds, then met his cheeky grin with one of her own. "Let's go, baby-face." She let him hand her into the back of the Benz, finally relaxing as he started the big car and backed it carefully into the driveway and headed down the gravel drive, triggering the remote on the sun visor.

At nearly two hours, the drive to La Guardia would be cutting it close. She had been looking forward to the arrival of her maid of honor, her best friend, with increasing desperation for weeks. Now, at last, four days before the scheduled civil ceremony, Stephanie was on her way, due to arrive at the airport in less than three hours. Even thinking about Steph made her weepy, bringing up as it did memories of their joint carousing in the Seattle justice system. They had met on opposite sides of a case shortly after Tracy had first started with the state Attorney General's office. Adversarial dislike had quickly become mutual respect and friendship. Stephanie Price was one of the most acute defense attorneys Tracy had ever locked horns with, and their careers had intersected with enough regularity to confirm that impression. They had made a point of not working against each other often, trusting in each other's integrity as lawyers not to accept a case that they did not believe in, knowing that one of them would be wrong, would lose. She knew Stephanie would be caught completely unprepared for the form Tracy's life had assumed. Stephanie was one of the few people in Seattle who knew her full history. For Tracy to have apparently married back into the mob would trip every alarm Stephanie possessed.

Her thoughts occupied her the entire drive. Mitchell's repeated enquiry as to whether she wanted him to park the car or wait at the arrivals curb finally snapped her out of it.

"Mrs. T? You still with me?" Mitch asked, catching her eye in the rearview mirror. "You want we should wait here for her, or do we go in and meet her?"

"Park, Mitch. We're early enough that she shouldn't have landed yet. We'll meet her at the gate".

"Sure thing," Hanley replied, pulling the big Mercedes away from the arrivals' curb and back into the frenetic motor traffic of the airport, heading for the short-term lot. He parked and walked his charge back into the airport, his attention on the crowds surrounding them. Lococco had made it abundantly clear that the Terranovas were targets, and that there was at least one man in the city likely to make an attempt on them. He tried to ignore his awareness of the woman he protected, knowing the emotional turmoil that coursed just below her skin was none of his business. But as an agent, he had been trained to spot a target's weaknesses. It was obvious to him that Tracy Terranova needed a friend. He was of two minds about applying for the role. The last thing he needed was to trigger some sort of jealous defense reaction in her husband, the true target of his investigation. But he felt for the woman, and didn't like seeing her so distressed.

They waited at the gate for the newly arrived flight from Seattle to disembark, Tracy peering anxiously at the throngs that moved up the ramp in eddying knots. Finally, she spotted the diminutive figure of her friend, dwarfed by the six or seven tallish men who lingered in her vicinity. Tracy could not stifle her grin. Stephanie was a magnet for men. Something about her dark, petite delicacy drew them like flies to honey. They had spent a fair amount of time joking about the fact that despite this, Steph had been unable to maintain a long-term relationship with any of her would-be suitors when they had realized her career took precedence over everything else in her life. None of them, Steph asserted, had been worth changing her focus. None of them had met her nebulous criteria as soul mates. Her sexual appetite came close to rivaling Lococco's, Tracy acknowledged, and wondered how the two of them would react to one another. She had a pretty good idea what Stephanie's response would be. "Steph!" she hailed her, moving forward into the crowd as Stephanie turned at the sound of her name. She shrugged off Mitchell's restraining hand impatiently and swept Stephanie into a hug, laughing. "I'm so glad you're here," she said, her relief apparent even to herself. She knew Steph had picked up on it when the chocolate colored eyes met hers, a flash of concern in them.

"I can't _believe_ you got married and didn't invite me!" was Stephanie's laughing reply. "You know I love weddings! Especially when it's one of my friends! I didn't even get to make a play for the best man, you bitch." She landed a mock blow to Tracy's abdomen and then hugged her again. "You look like a million bucks, Trace," she added.

"So do you, pip-squeak," Tracy told her honestly.

Stephanie peered around Tracy's shoulder at the visibly fidgety Mitchell. "That Mr. Right?" she whispered.

Tracy laughed. "That's Mitchell Hanley, one of the drivers. And he's a little young for me," she pointed out.

"So what? We're mature women, approaching our sexual peak. He's a studly little number who's moving _out_ of his. So libidos collide," Stephanie laughed.

Tracy laughed again, relishing the banter, realizing how deeply she had missed it. "Well help yourself, Barbarella. As far as I know, he's unattached. You're right though, he _is_ studly." 

"Glad to see marriage has not dulled your appreciation for the finer things," Stephanie teased as she linked arms with Tracy and walked with her the rest of the way out of the arrivals gate. She watched Hanley move in front of them, acting as a blocking lineman in the crowds, admiring the obvious muscular strength in the body under the well-fitted suit. This was a man who had recently _worked_ for a living.

They chattered like gossipy old women the whole drive back to Long Island, Stephanie catching her up with their mutual friends and adversaries in a brutally witty monologue that had Tracy laughing hard enough to leave her ribs aching.

It was not until perhaps half an hour from the Long Island house that Stephanie asked the question that had been gnawing at her since Tracy had called her and asked her to come out for the civil ceremony. "So who is this Vince Terranova that you'd let him talk you into a whirlwind marriage? I figured you for the long engagement type, Trace."

"I always figured myself that way, too," Tracy agreed. "Wait till you meet him," she said, floundering, knowing that she could not answer that question honestly, not without revealing more than she should. Stephanie was not stupid. She was perfectly capable of working out for herself the fact that all was not as it seemed with even minimal clues. The fact that Tracy had married a man who fitted the classic gangster mold, and lived surrounded by armed men would be enough to make Stephanie alert to any available subtext. She smiled reassuringly at Steph as her friend cocked a leery eyebrow at this temporization. 

Hanley pulled into the driveway, pulling to a stop in front of the house to unload the passengers. The women headed up the front stairs and into the house, Mitchell following with the visitor's baggage. He lugged it upstairs and put it in the green room, the only one frilly enough for a female guest, assuming that this would be where Tracy had planned on stashing her friend, then returned downstairs and pulled the car into the garage. The second big sedan was gone, as was Lococco's BMW, telling him that Terranova and 

Lococco had both gone out, presumably to attend to some sort of business. He entered the house and made for the kitchen, hanging the keys on the rack with the rest of the auto keys, and poured a mug of coffee. He took it outside and sat at the glass and wrought iron table on the flagstone courtyard, sipping from it. He considered his progress in infiltrating the Terranova organization with mixed feelings.

He had gained entry on a superficial level, granting him access to at least general information and the undercurrents associated with whatever it was that Lococco and Terranova were spending their time on. But unless he could convince them that he was more valuable in their close orbit than as general muscle, he was not likely to get near enough to the action to be able to build a case against them. He knew Lococco was wary of him, and decided that soothing the man's hyper-sensitive radar had better become the first thing on his agenda. He sat in the sunshine, lingering over his coffee, considering the best way to accomplish this.

Tracy showed Stephanie around the house, reveling in the genuine praise Stephanie rained down on her, careful to assign credit where it was due, when the refinished woodwork caught Stephanie's eye. "That's all Roger," she said, when asked how long it had taken. "You'll need to ask him. The manual labor I left to him. He got the place remodeled, painted and ready to live in in world record time."

"Who's Roger?" Stephanie asked, curious. "The contractor?"

"Not exactly," Tracy laughed. "Roger Lococco is Vinnie's business partner. You'll meet him later," she assured her.

They spent a good hour and a half wandering the house before stepping out into the grounds. Tracy called the dogs, who came willingly, hoping for a game, then went on alert when they realized their favorite playmate was not alone. Tracy introduced them to Stephanie, who stood carefully still, allowing them to take her measure. When their posture relaxed, she offered them her hands to smell, in a formal introduction. When their tongues began to loll in doggy grins she scratched them around the ears.

"I didn't know you liked pets," Stephanie said, eyeing Tracy consideringly.

"I had dogs growing up. There just hasn't been much point in having one since I wasn't home enough. Besides, Othello and Iago are a little more than pets."

"I'd noticed," Steph said dryly. "They look like hairy steak knives, to me."

Tracy smiled. "Vince and Roger are powerful men. Powerful men have enemies. So we have Othello and Iago. And Mitchell. And the rest of the men."

"Interesting choice of names," Stephanie mused.

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of car tires on the gravel drive out front. Tracy and Stephanie exchanged looks and Tracy led the way back into the house to the parlor, peering out through the French doors at the newly arrived vehicle. It was Lococco's BMW Z3. She paused, not entirely sure she was up for introductions without Vince as a buffer. She used the offering of drinks as a cover for her hesitation. "Want something?" she asked Stephanie, pouring a sherry for herself, ignoring the odd look on her friend's face as she glanced out the windows again at the little sports car in the drive.

"Okay," Stephanie agreed, taking the sherry Tracy handed her, following her gaze out the windows. Together, they watched Lococco and Alex Blanchard get out of the car. Blanchard spoke quietly to Roger for a moment, then headed for the south wing, leaving Lococco leaning laconically against the side of the car, feet extended out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, arms folded over his chest, waiting. Stephanie made her way across the room to the bank of windows to stare out at the man in the drive. "So who's that?" she asked, not bothering to conceal her interest.

"That," Tracy said with irony, "is Roger Lococco, Vinnie's partner."

"Yum," Stephanie observed, not meaning the sherry. "So do I get to meet the guy?" she asked, turning to Tracy. "And do I get to use him as a bed warmer?"

"I thought you were looking to audition Mitch for that job," Tracy said, smiling.

"If you're not using them, I'll take them both. I like my bed _really_ warm," Stephanie grinned.

"Flooze," Tracy teased. "I don't think you're Roger's type, Steph."

"So what _is_ his type?"

"Let's just say they get paid by the hour," Tracy said caustically. 

Stephanie cocked an eye at the tone of her voice. "Maybe he just hasn't met the right woman," she said with a grin.

"Hon, that man has met more women — right or otherwise — than there are apples in Washington. And he's probably slept with most of them." Tracy heard the waspishness in her voice but couldn't help it.

"So what about you?" Stephanie cocked an eyebrow.

"What _about_ me?" Tracy asked irritably, on the verge of becoming seriously annoyed.

"I know the sort of guys that attract you, and he's it — in spades! This is me, Trace, remember? So have you slept with him?" 

Tracy eyed her friend with bitter humor. "You haven't met Vince, yet," she said simply.

"Well if the bird in the hand beats the one in the bushes out there, I can see why you married him — and why you let yourself be locked up in this homage' -" she gave it the French pronunciation- "to testosterone. This isn't like you, Trace, so it's got to be love."

Finally, Stephanie was able to persuade Tracy to make the introductions. Lococco had not stirred from his position against the car, his preferred working wardrobe of basic black and the dark sunglasses lending him a subtly sinister look. She followed Tracy out the front doors and down the wide front steps, eyes fixed on the lean figure with the sandy, not-quite-red, hair.

Lococco was well aware of the scrutiny he was under, and of the menacing picture he made. He had spent most of his adult life cultivating the aura of the dangerous — and possibly homicidal — hired muscle. He was equally aware of having attracted the interest of Tracy's friend, a petite brunette with waving raven hair halfway down her back, and a pair of large dark brown eyes. She was tiny, not much taller than Preet had been. She would fit comfortably in his arms, his bed, he thought, briefly considering it. He watched the two women approach, using the ambiguity provided by the sunglasses to mask the fact that it was not the brunette his gaze lingered on. He straightened as it became clear that introductions were about to made.

"Roger, I'd like you to meet my friend, Stephanie Price. Steph, this is Roger Lococco," Tracy said, watching the two shake hands, Stephanie at her most charming, the radiant smile she flashed advertising her interest. She could see Lococco's typical male response to her, and tried to stifle the surge of jealousy that swept her without warning. The strength of that unwelcome emotion startled her, leaving her hands sweating, her heart pounding. And to make matters worse, Roger's eyes flicked to her, visible around the edge of his sunglasses, as though he sensed her upheaval. She looked away, surreptitiously wiping her palms on her jeans, missing the faint furrowing of his forehead. 

Stephanie, a master of small talk, engaged Roger in conversation, flirting outrageously with him. He reciprocated, removing his sunglasses and focusing his gray eyes on her as he partnered Stephanie in the oldest and most preliminary of courtship duets.

Lococco was conscious of Tracy's discomfort, and kept the impulse to increase the intensity of his flirtation under tight rein. Making Tracy aware of her own feelings was one thing, but if he failed to make it clear to both women that the flirtation would be nothing more than that, he would only succeed in further alienating Tracy. 

The sound of gravel crunching under car tires distracted the three, and they turned to watch the second limo roll slowly up the drive. Roger excused himself and moved casually toward the car before it had come to a halt, smiling faintly. Kevin D'Arrigo got out of the drivers seat and moved to open the back seat passenger-side door before Vince could shut down his laptop and open it himself. 

Terranova handed the computer to Lococco as he got out of the car. "Everything go okay on your end?" he asked quietly, for Roger's ears alone.

"No problem. We are now the official lessees of the Plaza Hotel's second best suite. It was the most central location I could get," Roger replied equally softly. "So when do you tell her we've found yet another gilded cage to put her in?"

Vince shot him a dirty look before turning his attention to his wife and the dark-haired woman who accompanied her. He watched them approach, smiling at Tracy.

Stephanie watched the man who got out of the car. This had to be Vince Terranova, she realized, watching the smile that lit his features. The bird in the hand was definitely a catch, she admitted to herself. He was tall, stocky and well-muscled, radiating a self-confident power that drew the eye. Less outwardly menacing than Lococco, there was still evidence in the planes and lines of his face of both the will and the ability to be ruthless. And the look in his eye when he kissed his wife didn't hurt, either. The man was clearly in love. Inadvertently, she caught sight of the look in Lococco's eyes as he watched the couple. The wistfulness there, coupled with the subtle body language of desire, was unmistakable. She wondered if Tracy realized that Lococco was also enamored of her, doubting it. She squelched the brief flash of jealousy at the idea of having a pair of men like Terranova and Lococco vying for her attention, knowing it was not in Tracy's nature to play suitors off one another. Still, it should fuel a few interesting conversations over the course of the week she planned on staying. She smiled winningly at Terranova as Tracy introduced her, taking the hand he offered, shaking it firmly.

"Nice to meet you," he told her with a warm smile. "Trace has been looking forward to your getting here for weeks," he added, with a fond glance at Tracy as he slipped an arm around her waist. Tracy leaned unselfconsciously against him, at home in his embrace.

"Well, I wondered what sort of guy it would take to finally get under her guard," Stephanie said with a smile. "Now I know."

Vince's eyes crinkled as he smiled back at her. "Her guard wasn't the only one breached," he remarked with humor.

"I can see that," she answered with a laugh.

"How was your flight?" he asked politely.

The conversation lingered on air travel as they walked toward the house and up the front stairs, settling in the parlor as Lococco assumed the role of bartender. They chatted amiably, Stephanie resuming her flirtation, this time with both men, indulging in it, knowing by now that neither of them would take it any further. She would reserve her more subtle, and generally successful, approach for the boy toys that populated the place like a college athletic team. She tried not to regret the two men's unavailability, telling herself that Tracy was fortunate, even if oblivious to the intensity of their focus on her. It was abundantly obvious that she had found what they had both claimed to want, on those occasions they had shared confidences regarding ideal mates. That she had found a matched set was simply an embarrassment of riches, and Stephanie allowed herself a moment or two of envy.

The five hired hands, as Tracy had called them, joined them in the parlor perhaps an hour later, entering comfortably into the conversation. There was apparently no stringent separation of employers from employees, the household instead organized around an egalitarian model. Stephanie approved, even as she wondered at the need for the abundance of bodyguards. Knowing Tracy's past as she did, it caught her by surprise. She resolved to keep her eyes and ears open, hoping for some clearer indication of what business the two men were in, exactly.

"I had Rog arrange for a place downtown, Trace," Vince was telling his wife. "I know you're kind of stuck way out here, and I figured it might be more convenient when you want to do some shopping if you had a place to hang out."

"What kind of place?" Tracy inquired, with a wariness Stephanie noted but couldn't explain.

"A suite at the Plaza Hotel, across from Central Park," Lococco answered the question. "It'll be a good place for us to spend the night in the city if we have some kind of business commitment.

Stephanie watched Tracy absorb this, watched the flash of irritation, not understanding it, either. "Cool!" she interjected, forestalling the incipient outburst she could see gathering in Tracy's face. "Let's go shopping," she said to Tracy, eagerly. "Fifth Avenue is like the promised land for shop-aholics like me." She saw Tracy pull herself together, and smiled at her. Tracy smiled back, gratitude in the expression.

"We could go in tomorrow," Tracy agreed. "We need to find you a bridesmaid's dress."

"You're on," Stephanie grinned.

The rest of the evening was spent in conversation, and Stephanie began her campaign to bed Mitchell. She kept it light, but made her interest clear, figuring she would have most of the week to woo him and win him. He didn't strike her as the hard-to-get type, but one couldn't always tell. Donatello, D'Arrigo and Blanchard were not bad prospects, either, come to that. Falcone was clearly not a lady's man, his attention subtly focused on Terranova the bulk of the time. She wished him luck, but the likelihood of a seduction there struck her as improbable. At least not as long as Vince had stars in his eyes over his wife.

Over the course of the evening, she was fascinated at the flow of the currents between Lococco, Vince and Tracy. The energy between the trio was unmistakable, and Tracy's prickliness under Roger's attention told Stephanie she was aware of his interest on some level, even if it was largely subconscious. Lococco was cautious in the extreme with Tracy, dropping out of conversations every time she began to pick a fight with him, gaze resting on some middle ground as the discussion eddied around him. It was very subtly done, and she doubted whether anyone besides herself and the trio were aware it was going on. She watched the by-play between Vince and Lococco with equal interest. It was readily obvious that the pair were extraordinarily close. She allowed herself to wonder just how far that bond extended, thinking perhaps Falcone might not have picked such a lost cause, after all. She vowed to be as nosy as Tracy would let her get away with, the following day. An all-day shopping expedition was the perfect time for the sort of girl-version of a locker-room bull session Stephanie had in mind. There had not been much they had not been able to talk about in the past. Stephanie hoped that was still the case.

Tracy pushed, watching Roger retreat from the conversation. It lured her after him, looking for a reaction. She didn't understand this sudden reticence on Lococco's part, and unreasonably, it angered her. He refused to rise to the bait, and, conversationally, she circled him, striking verbal blows that irritated and harassed and still failed to engage him in the usual battle of wits. Vince had apparently made it clear that the usual sarcasm would not be acceptable and Lococco had taken it seriously. On the one hand relieved, contrarily, she also found herself missing the verbal sparing that had made up the bulk of their interactions. She finally excused herself shortly after eleven p.m., knowing she was beginning to let her irritability show, and the men were showing no signs of retiring. Stephanie came with her, linking arms with her as they walked up the stairs companionably. Tracy accompanied her to her bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed as Stephanie began unpacking her suitcases.

"So what do you think of him?" Tracy asked hesitantly.

"Who, Vince?" Stephanie replied. "He's totally gorgeous, hon. And so is Lococco. You know he has a thing for you?"

"Oh, don't _you_ start!" Tracy exclaimed. "Vince has been trying to tell me the same thing for months."

"Well, he'd be right," Stephanie answered with a smile. "Believe me, Trace, I have plenty of practice spotting an interested man. And Roger is _interested_."

Tracy frowned, not wanting to hear this, and wanting even less to believe it. "I think the two of you are imagining things," she said dismissively. 

"I don't think so," Stephanie denied. "But suit yourself. How did he and Vince meet?"

Tracy hesitated. This was what she had dreaded about seeing her friends for the first time since her return East. "They were working for the same guy about ten years ago. Actually, Roger hired Vinnie. They got to be friends, and when the guy had a meltdown, they decided to go into business together."

"What do they do, exactly?" was Stephanie's query.

"They're partners in a holding company. They have majority interests in all sorts of businesses, a lot of it food service-related. Roger has vineyards and a new winery out in California. They're involved in everything from fishing fleets to commercial laundries. And they just bought into a shipping company here in New York. They even have a little hi-tech in the portfolio." Tracy said, truthfully enough, as far as it went. 

"And how did you meet Vince?"

"Actually, I first met him over ten years ago, just before my father died. He was working for my Uncle Sonny."

Stephanie turned to stare at Tracy. "You're telling me he's mob?"

"He was," Tracy confessed. "He hasn't been involved with it for years, Steph. But recently"

Stephanie sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. "Oh, brother. I thought you swore you'd never go back to the life, Trace," she answered, shaken. "No wonder you live in an armed camp. What's he involved with? Why did he go back? He's gotta know how you feel about the mob — doesn't he?"

Tracy nodded. "He knows I put a half dozen wiseguys behind bars in Seattle. He got involved again because his stepfather is a don, and asked for his help. We're out of New York as soon as he's fixed whatever it was Rudy wanted him to take care of."

"And you don't have any idea what it is?" Stephanie's disbelief was unmistakable.

"I'm a woman," Tracy said bitterly. "We're talking feudal attitude, Steph. Not from Vinnie, but from everyone he's working with. We're either Madonnas or whores, and don't have two brain cells to rub together. It drives me crazy!"

"I can see that," Stephanie agreed, suddenly understanding Tracy's subtle restlessness. 

"I told Vinnie where he stands with me and the law. He's promised me he'll stay clean." Tracy told her.

"And you trust him?" 

"Completely," Tracy said, her tone confirming this extraordinary claim. "But in the mean time, there's some thug out there who's promised to kill Vince and Roger, so I've been stuck way out here with nothing to do but play Martha Stewart. It's driving me out of my mind. So I take it out on the guys. They don't think much of me, I'm afraid."

"Well they're not exactly seeing you at your best, sweetheart," Stephanie said dryly. "Even _I'd_ picked up on that!" She grinned at the scowl Tracy aimed at her. "But now you've got the run of the city, so cheer up."

"Hardly," Tracy replied. "We won't be on our own tomorrow. One or more of the guys will be coming along, ostensibly to carry the bags, but in reality to keep someone from putting a bullet into Terranova's wife."

Stephanie stared at her, nonplussed. "You're serious?"

"About the guys, or about the hitter?" Tracy said cynically.

Stephanie just stared at her.

"Someone wants them dead. And they're likely to be just as happy getting me as them." Tracy shrugged.

"Geezus, Trace. No wonder you walked away from this ten years ago."

This conversation continued to circle in Stephanie's thoughts even the next day as Mitchell drove them into the city and gamely hauled parcels as they went from sale to sale along Fifth Avenue. He was unobtrusive, but quick to insert himself between them and anyone who ventured too close for his comfort. It was a bit like going to the prom with her brother, Stephanie thought with a certain amount of humor. The territorial male in him was evident to anyone within their radius, and people stayed instinctively away. It was fascinating to watch. 

Tracy resignedly ignored him and the buffer zone he created around them, doing her best to enjoy the expedition. Eventually, they found a dress that would complement Tracy's wedding dress, and that, not coincidentally, looked stunning on Stephanie. They even solicited Mitch's opinion, his raised eyebrows and appreciative stare a definite vote in favor of it.

They had Mitch take them to dinner, then arrived at the Plaza with all their packages and bags, and made their way up the private elevator to the suite Lococco had just leased. They stepped off the elevator into a parquet marble entry hall, the living area to the right and the bedrooms to the left. The five bedrooms were lavishly appointed, as were the livingroom, diningroom and the second sitting room, obviously meant as an office. There was even a small but functional Pullman type kitchen. 

They deposited their shopping in their respective bedrooms, then sat in the livingroom, giggling and gossiping while Hanley contented himself with some televised sporting event or other in his room, the door discretely closed to allow them the maximum amount of privacy. Stephanie and Tracy both were pleasantly surprised by that small consideration.

"He is a babe," Stephanie laughed as they heard his door shut behind him. "Even if he is only twenty eight."

"Baby, you mean. Be careful, or someone will come after you for contributing to the delinquency of a minor," Tracy teased.

"Do you mind?" Stephanie asked, suddenly tentative.

"Mind what?" 

"If I sleep with him," she clarified.

Tracy laughed. "You're a big girl, Steph. Who you take to your bed is completely up to you — and them."

"Even if it's Roger?" she asked, only half teasing.

"Don't start that again," Tracy warned. "If you want him, he's all yours."

"Too bad the feeling isn't mutual," Stephanie sighed.

Tracy glared at her, and Stephanie grinned.

"I'm married," Tracy reminded her, sarcastically.

"Speaking of which, just how close _are_ Vince and Roger?"

"You have a dirty mind, girlfriend. They are not now, nor have they ever been lovers, if that's what you're getting at. But they've saved each other's lives more than once. I think it's a brothers-in-arms' thing, that old male-bonding routine."

"Mmmm. Brothers in arms is a telling choice of descriptions," Stephanie teased, dodging the throw pillow Tracy swung at her. "I'm serious, Trace. It's pretty obvious they love each other."

"Yes, they do, but it's a bit of a leap to assume they're _in love_ with each other. Besides, according to Vince, Roger is a homophobe. All his bedmates since I've known him have been women. So go right ahead and make your play for him. I've never seen a man you went after fail to fall under your spell, you vamp."

"This one will," Stephanie assured her. "It's not me he wants. I'll bet you," she added.

"Bet me what?" Tracy asked warily.

"That all my feminine wiles will be wasted on him, and that_ I_ will go home to the rain festival in Seattle without having gotten him into bed. _And_ that you two will eventually wind up as lovers."

"No deal," Tracy said, smacking her again with the throw pillow. "Not everyone in the world has the kind of libido you and Roger have. Besides, sex with Vinnie is wonderful. Why would I need a lover?"

Stephanie laughed. "Why wouldn't you? If one is good, two would be better. Especially together. Especially if they're both in love with you."

Tracy shook her head. "Dream on," she laughed, knowing Stephanie was simply being outré by this time.

"Believe me, I do," Stephanie assured her, laughing as well. "Your husband and his partner will be in my wet dreams for a very long time, sweetie."

The civil ceremony was a profoundly different affair than the wedding had been months earlier. Less than twenty guests had been invited. The entire thing took place in the chambers of a judge McPike had recommended, a long-time friend of his. Even her mother, now confined to a wheelchair, had been able to attend, clearly overjoyed for her daughter. It was the first time Tracy had met Dan Burroughs, their Lifeguard, face to face, as he stood with Vince as best man. Stephanie and he hit it off immediately, and Tracy had watched their lively flirtation with amusement. She had not realized until their meeting, that he was an amputee, not that that seemed to matter one iota to Stephanie. Tracy found herself wondering if her maid of honor was bound and determined to sleep with every man that came within Tracy's orbit. She supposed she should consider herself lucky that Stephanie had not made a serious effort in Vinnie's direction.

Lococco was also on his best behavior, carrying on a surprisingly animated conversation with Tracy's mother regarding the wine Vince had shipped out for her. Tracy had watched them conversing out of the corner of her eye periodically through the lavish celebratory dinner Roger had arranged at one of the leading D.C. hot spots. Her mother was clearly under his spell by the time the party ended at nearly midnight, and the wedding party adjourned to the luxury hotel Roger had also arranged for. The guests were to reconvene at Tracy's mother's house for a Sunday catered brunch, since the now doubly married couple had already had their honeymoon.

By the time the weekend was over, Tracy had been thoroughly congratulated by the friends who had flown out for the ceremony, and had even struck up a friendship with Vinnie's cousin-by-marriage, Angie Tessio, and her new husband. She was, according to Vince, the only family member who had not disowned him when he had begun living a life of apparent crime. 

Her mood was vastly improved when they returned to the Long Island house with her guests' good wishes, not even Stephanie's teasing about Roger bothering her. It lasted for all of thirty seconds after entering the house, when Donatello, and the rest of the men had approached Roger and Vince, taking them to one side to discuss what was evidently some new disaster. 

Tracy tried to ignore the surge of tension in the air as she and Stephanie headed up the stairs to Stephanie's room to shelter from the rampant testosterone. She shut the door after them and threw herself onto the silk-covered bed, arms akimbo, sighing loudly. "Well, that didn't take long," she observed, bitterly.

"What?" Stephanie inquired. 

"For all hell to break loose," Tracy said. "Don't tell me you missed the little huddle the boys called the minute we stepped in the door?"

"More guy stuff? Or is it trouble?" Stephanie asked, sprawling beside her on the sea green bedspread. 

"Looks like trouble, to me," Tracy replied, sighing again. "What do you want to bet my city privileges are revoked?"

"You know, I'm starting to think you need to lay down the law around here, sweetie," Stephanie told her.

"Right," Tracy snorted, dismissively. "So, did you and Dan"

"You're trying to change the subject," Stephanie chided.

"You noticed," Tracy smiled. "So, did you?"

Stephanie smiled with a hint of smugness. "He's very athletic," she said ambiguously. 

"You've always had a thing for muscles," Tracy teased. "And what about the baby?" 

"One thing at the time," Stephanie replied. "I haven't even been in the same sate with him for two nights, Trace. I'm still working on him. Maybe tonight, if whatever is going on doesn't ruin the mood."

"I hope you own stock in a condom manufacturer," Tracy commented dryly. "They could use you as a poster child."

"No, I'm just a loyal consumer," Stephanie grinned. "I'm not up for STD's or unplanned pregnancies. Did you know that humans and dolphins are the only two species who have sex just for fun?"

"It gives new meaning to sleep with the fishes'," Tracy grinned.

Stephanie cracked up.

"How long ago?" Roger asked, grimly.

"We only got word yesterday," Donatello answered, equally grave. "I gotta be there," he said.

Vince nodded. "Go. But tell his guys to keep us posted. This is just too big a damned coincidence to be unrelated." He turned to Lococco. "This may be a move by our ghost," he said to Roger.

"It's going to take some research to rule out some sort of Family trouble, but my gut reaction says you're right," Lococco agreed.

Vince turned to D'Arrigo, Blanchard and Hanley. "This is where the ride starts to get bumpy," he told them. "Roger and I are trying to sort out a problem for some fellow investors in the city, investors who also happen to be connected. If you have a problem with that, now's the time to say so. You walk outta here with your last paycheck and a thank you and no hard feelings. But if you stay, know that we may be targets for more than the loose cannon out there now. Someone is looking to move in on the mob. If they're willing to hit one of the old guard like Chero Capuzi, they are pretty damned serious. And our job is to try to find out who the hell they are, and shut them down. Any way we can. That means there's a chance you'll get hurt. If you stay, you get hazard pay, and a bonus for anything you can come up with on whoever it is that's orchestrating this."

The three men exchanged glances, then Mitchell stiffened his spine. "I'm in," he told Terranova.

Blanchard and D'Arrigo nodded, only fractionally after Hanley. "Us, too," Blanchard agreed.

Vince nodded, a faint smile flitting over his face. "Alright, thanks, guys. Lou, I think I'd be happier with you in Brooklyn, keeping an eye on Rudy. If they're going after Capuzi, he may be on their list, too. What do you think?"

Falcone frowned. "If you say so, Vince. But it seems to me your boys are new to this thing of ours, and someone with a little experience might be an asset. I mean, this isn't the sort of thing they cover in bodyguard school," he pointed out. "No offense," he added to Blanchard and D'Arrigo. "Besides, Rudy has a whole house-full of muscle that could do with a little workout."

"He has a point, Vinnie," Roger agreed. "Kevin and Alex got the best conventional training out there, but it still doesn't cover the sort of shooting war this could turn into. And Mitch is fresh off the docks, even if he did work for Torricelli."

Mitchell scowled at this assessment, knowing this was the perception he would have to overcome in order to establish himself as an asset with these men. He vowed his next contact with his Lifeguard would include a stiffly worded request for information on the hit out on Capuzi. It was also time to start establishing himself among his fellow hired hands as leadership material. Falcone, a bit of a loner, would be easy, relatively. An offer of friendship would be his opening overture. With Blanchard and D'Arrigo, asking for a tutorial in the sort of training they had undergone might be the best ice breaker. They were all cordial enough, but in Mitch's opinion, what was needed was something that would pull the four of them into a unit. And he was going to be that something.

His musing was interrupted when Vince bowed to Lou's wishes. "Okay, wiseguy. You've just signed on for the long haul. I want you to take Richie back into the city, and then try and get as much information as you can out of Chero's security guys. I wanna know what they know. All of it. And take D'Arrigo with you. We might as well start getting him broken in."

"I could handle that," Mitch spoke up, knowing he was likely pushing his luck. 

"Sorry, Buckwheat, you and Alex get to baby-sit us old folks," Roger told him, reining him in. He could recognize a hungry underling when he saw it, and within reason, didn't mind encouraging a little entrepreneurial spirit. But he would not risk leaving the house and grounds unprotected. "Don't worry, you'll get your shot."

"We need a couple of you to stay here, and stay alert. And from now on, Tracy doesn't go anywhere without at least two of us. She's a civilian, as far as this whole thing goes, and _she_ is my priority," Vince told them. "She isn't going to make it easy on you, which probably comes as no news flash, seeing how she's been for the last couple of months." 

The men smiled ruefully, nodding at this observation.

"That's likely to be something of an understatement," Lococco added cynically.

Mitch poured himself a cup of coffee and stirred a generous dollop of cream into it, warming his hands on the sides of the mug. A fog had crept in off the sound, rather uncommon for an August night, telling him it had probably been unbearably hot inland that day. He had just finished his shift as border patrol, Alex having relieved him ten minutes before. The dogs were loose, and would find one or the other of them should anything out of the ordinary find its' way onto the property. It was nearly two in the morning, and he lingered in the warm kitchen, rummaging for a snack in the refrigerator, a gleaming stainless steel monstrosity that could hold enough food to feed an army. The part-time housekeeper had evidently just been shopping, because it was crammed full of provisions. Meals were erratic, a do-it-your-self affair, when Lococco didn't cook them, and Mitch hoped that someone would apply for the job, full time.

When the door to the kitchen opened and Tracy's friend, Stephanie, stepped into the room, he jumped, not expecting company. Neither, apparently, was she. He saw her startled double-take, and the in-drawn breath, then watched her recover her aplomb.

"I didn't think anyone was still up," she said, heading for the coffee pot and helping herself. "Mind if I join you?"

He shook his head, not minding the company of pretty women in the slightest. Especially intelligent ones. He pushed a chair out from under the edge of the central island that served as a makeshift table with his foot, and offered her a section of the orange he had just peeled.

She took the chair and refused the orange. "I'm in the mood for chocolate," she told him with a grin, taking a bar of some designer chocolate out of her bathrobe pocket and offering him a chunk when she'd opened the wrapper. He took a piece, watching her drop hers into the steaming coffee and stirring. "Do-it-yourself mocha," she said to his raised eyebrow. "Seattle is the coffee Mecca of the West Coast," she said. "My favorite coffee bar makes them this way. They're yummy. Try it," she encouraged, pushing her mug toward him.

He took it and sipped cautiously, pleasantly surprised at the distinct chocolate flavor and the surprising lack of sweetness. "Not bad," he said, handing her mug back to her. "You're from Seattle? That where you met Mrs. Terranova?"

Stephanie nodded. "We squared off on opposite sides of a case about five years ago."

"You a lawyer, too?"

"I'm with the D.A.'s office," Stephanie responded, sipping at her coffee. His cocked eyebrow made her smile. "And I'd be willing to bet Tracy told you to call her by her name," she teased him, vastly amused when he blushed slightly.

"Well, yeah, but it seems weird," he confessed.

"Just don't start Ms. Price'-ing me," she told him, smiling. "I'm not terribly lady-like," she warned.

It took another half an hour before she succeeded in making it plain just how un-ladylike she was. When she finally kissed him, he kissed her back with the sort of hunger that boded well for a sleepless night.

She brought him to her bedroom, and they undressed each other slowly, conducting their explorations of each other with all senses engaged. She wasn't especially inhibited, and being almost seven years his senior, she guided him gently in pleasing her, knowing that male egos — especially young ones — were even more easily bruised than a tree-ripe peach. She set about pleasuring him with equal diligence, rewarded by his absolute insatiability. They made love a half-dozen times in half that number of hours, his stamina astonishing her. This one she would remember fondly, she thought as he kissed her under her jaw, then found her breasts with mouth and hands in a reluctant farewell as daybreak lightened the shadows on the walls of her bedroom.

"Can we do this again?" she asked him as she stroked the inside of his thigh delicately.

"Oh, yeah," was his unhesitating response, his fingers sliding between her own thighs in an intimate parting caress. He felt her shudder and the wetness that signaled her readiness. "Hold that thought," he told her as he kissed her again, then rose and pulled on his pants, gathering the rest of his clothes and departing for the day's work. 

She stretched, luxuriating in the sensual pleasures of the night and fell into a light doze as the sun came up.

Tracy toweled off Vinnie's broad back, kissing the nape of his neck. "So what's going on?" she asked, having held her peace all night, hoping he would explain the escalation of tensions in the household.

He turned, dipping his head to kiss her mouth softly. "What do you mean?" he asked absently, taking the towel from her and rubbing it briskly over his wet head to dry his hair.

"Don't play dumb with me, Vinnie. Where did Donatello go? What was the panic when we got home yesterday?" Tracy demanded, trying to quash her irritation.

Vinnie hung the towel around his shoulders and ran fingers through his damp hair. "Richie found out Sunday night that there's a hit out on Chero Capuzi. We don't know where it's originating from, but Chero's guys got wind of something going down next week during his birthday bash. Donatello's loyalty lies first with his don, and he asked to go back, at least till this is handled."

Tracy felt the swift surge of adrenaline through her body as she stared at her husband. "Are you telling me there's a war coming?" she asked after a long moment.

"I don't know, Trace. Maybe. Unless we can find out who's behind what's going on out there. Since Thomas Eboli decided to shelter Castellano, we've got to deal with the possibility that the Genoveses are somehow mixed up in this. If they are, there is big trouble on the way." He met her gaze solemnly. "I don't want you going anywhere without at least two of us," he told her.

Tracy closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, struggling with her temper. "Women and children have never been targets in these things, Vince. I don't need that kind of protection. You and Roger do. And I have a news flash for you. Living behind walls is _not_ the way I'm planning on spending this part of my life!"

"We aren't sure it's one of the families that's ultimately behind this, Trace. Until we know more, I'm erring on the side of caution." He caught her chin, tilting her face up, locking eyes with her. "And you're too important to me to leave you unprotected. I love you, and I don't want you hurt."

"You can't protect me from this," she told him grimly. "I'm not some hot house flower that wilts at the first hint of bad weather. I'm not an accessory, Vinnie. I need something concrete to do! Right now, all I am to you and Roger is a liability. If that's the only role you'll let me play, then, I'm warning you, Vince, I'm outta here."

Vince sighed heavily. "Give me a little more time, babe. I want to know more about whatever it is that's going on here before I turn you loose."

She glared at him. "I'm not waiting much longer," she told him at last. "I'm going stir-crazy. I am _not_ housewife material, Vinnie," she said emphatically, as she turned and left the bathroom, knotting the sash of her bathrobe with a sharp yank.

Vince watched her go unhappily. He was only too aware of her restlessness, and knew it just complicated the situation that existed with Lococco. At least Roger had managed to keep a grip on his temper around her in the past week or so, since their conversation in the master library. The problem was, he had no idea what work to put Tracy too, the Victorian attitudes of the mob where women were involved precluding her participation on a management level.

He also knew it was something he could not put off dealing with for much longer. Tracy's happiness, and ultimately his marriage, depended on finding an answer to the question of her inclusion.

Tracy got dressed and occupied herself with fixing a late breakfast for Hanley and Blanchard, wondering absently where Stephanie was. She had just finished loading the dishwasher when her friend drifted into the kitchen in her bathrobe, looking delectably tousled.

"I guess I don't need to ask if you had a good night," Tracy remarked drolly, pouring her a mug of coffee.

"Oh, _please_ ask," Stephanie laughed, sitting on one of the tall chairs at the central island. "I want to brag about the stud-muffin's prowess."

Tracy couldn't stifle her smile. "So how was your night?" she complied.

"Heavenly," Stephanie smiled back.

"So do I get the X-rated version?" Tracy inquired archly.

"He's gorgeous, he's a quick study and he's built like a stallion. And he must have been training for marathons, sweetie, cause I was up all night. I am a _very_ happy camper." Stephanie stretched her feet out in front of herself, then rested her bare heels on the lower rung of the chair. "I'm ready for a rematch any time," she added.

"I guess that means you've given up on Roger?" Tracy asked snidely.

"I won't turn him away if I get his attention, but the chances of that are increasingly slim. I'll manage to make do with what I've got," she sighed melodramatically, raising the back of a hand to her forehead in mock suffering.

Tracy giggled.

It was nearly an hour before Stephanie had finished showering and had dressed. She was game for the day's planned antiquing expedition, especially since Mitchell would be accompanying them. Perhaps she could persuade him to slip away briefly for a little heavy petting

The shoulder holster was a definite deterrent to romance, she thought, hours later. The relaxed and attentive ardor of the night before had been replaced with the calm detachment of a man doing his job, protecting the womenfolk from unseen dangers. His attention was focused outward, and each of her subtle advances was ignored. Or so she thought, until a stop at a roadside antique shop gave him a split second of privacy with her. He caught her in his arms, pulling her hard against his hips as he kissed her deeply and hurriedly.

"You are driving me out of my mind," he told her, his frustration amply evident in the hardness of his loins against her belly. "If you don't stop teasing me, we're all going to be sorry," he added, releasing her. "Let me do my job, Stephanie," he pleaded.

"God, you're totally adorable," she grinned at him. "And for the record, _I_ wouldn't be sorry," she said, brushing her fingers over him provocatively as she turned away, feeling him stiffen, hearing his breathy groan. "Hold that thought'," she quoted over her shoulder as she followed Tracy into the antique shop.

The evening dragged unbearably in Mitchell's estimation, catching Stephanie's sloe-eyed glances intermittently. He swore she must have used some sort of aphrodisiac as a perfume. It astounded him that every male in residence wasn't circling her like dogs after a bitch in heat. Getting her back into bed was the only thought he could focus on, and he knew she was aware of it. He thanked god that Falcone and D'Arrigo had returned and would be taking the night watch. He prayed that Lococco and Terranova would save their briefing on what Falcone had learned until the following morning. Finally, at slightly after ten thirty, he excused himself, claiming exhaustion. He left the main library feeling her eyes follow him up the stairs.

Tracy, sitting on the couch with Vince, snuggled in his arms, caught Stephanie's eye, smiling faintly. Stephanie quirked an eyebrow, her own slight shrug and faint smile acknowledging Tracy's awareness of Hanley's state of agitation. She excused herself fifteen minutes after Hanley had left the room, following him up the stairs. D'Arrigo, Blanchard and Falcone departed shortly thereafter, D'Arrigo taking first watch.

Lococco leaned back in his chair, legs stretched out in front of him, exchanging meaningful glances with Vince, and grinned sardonically. "You think we need to spell out the law when it comes to the boys fraternizing with the guests?" he asked with a note of cynicism. 

"In this case, I think it's a case of the _guest_ fraternizing with the _boys_," Tracy put in before Vince could reply, her own amusement evident. "We're all adults here," she continued. "Save your gallantry for damsels who need protecting," she told Roger.

"Actually, I was thinking it was Hanley who needed protecting," Roger remarked, smothering a grin.

"The only thing he needs protection from is a shortage of blood to his brain," Vince commented.

Tracy laughed.

Mitchell tumbled her onto the bed, pinning her under his weight, laughing. "So subtlety isn't exactly my strength," he told her, nuzzling her neck.

Stephanie laughed as well. "I'll say," she responded, ruffling his auburn hair. "I don't think there's anyone in the house who doesn't know where you are and what you're doing."

He lifted his head and looked down into her face. "Does that bother you?" he asked, curiously.

"Not even slightly, lover. If you want to shout it from the roof-tops, go right ahead," she grinned up at him.

"What, and invite in the competition?" Mitch said, amused.

"Sweetie, there _is_ no competition," Stephanie assured him, running hands down his spine and over his buttocks teasingly.

"I see the way you look at Lococco," he replied, moving his weight off her and sliding his own hand up her body to cup a breast, bending his head to take the nipple in his mouth.

"And you don_'t_ see him looking back, do you?" Stephanie asked, arching her back to encourage the contact.

"Then he's blind," Mitch murmured against her skin, his hand moving down her body again to the wet heat between her thighs, hearing her sigh.

"_He_ may be, but you're not," she said, stroking him in return, feeling the tautness of his penis under her fingers.

"His loss, my gain," Mitch groaned, and moved to cover her.

"Stephanie has healthy appetites," Tracy defended her friend, sometime later, as she lay in her husband's arms, their bodies sweaty with their own lovemaking.

Vince laughed fondly into her hair. "You could say that," he agreed. "First Dan, now Mitchell. She's from the same school Lococco is," he observed. "She ever been married?"

"No. Her career has always come first. She's maybe the best DA in Seattle. She's never taken sex too seriously." Tracy stretched against Vinnie's length, unable to keep from teasing him, tantalizing him with the fleeting brush of her body against his.

"Think what she's missing," he replied, teasing her in his turn, his touch unerring.

"I don't think _she_ thinks she's missing a thing," Tracy replied, sighing with pleasure.

"Maybe someday she'll find out different," Vince told her, smiling.

Tracy woke sometime in the small hours of the night, flushed with the residual arousal of an erotic dream, anxiety quickly replacing the pleasure. It had not even been especially sexual, more a courtship; fleeting glances, clandestine touches of hands, and the almost adolescent sensation of the _awareness_ of a man's interest. The problem was, the man she had been so conscious of had been Roger. He had been so different from her waking experience of him as to be nearly unrecognizable. The impenetrable defenses had been down, perhaps even gone completely. His body language, his words, his touch had all been uncharacteristically gentle, even tender.

The sudden fear that Vince and Stephanie were right, that Lococco's feelings for her were far more complex than she had been willing to believe, was compounded by the even greater fear that her own feelings for him were not what she had thought them to be. She cursed Stephanie's casual destruction of her paradigm, leaving her feeling adrift in a welter of emotions that terrified her. The idea of being in love, not with one man, but two, was completely beyond her experience. And she had no idea what to do about it, if this was what was happening to her. She did not sleep the rest of the night, thoughts in turmoil.

A call to Lococco from Donatello had the household buzzing the next morning. Capuzi's head of security, Cal McLean, was on his way out to discuss Vinnie's participation in securing the site of the don's upcoming party the following week. That it was Terranova's organization Capuzi was turning too was nearly unprecedented. Falcone and Hanley explained it to Blanchard and D'Arrigo as comparable to the Republicans asking the Democrats to decide on the budget for the defense department. It was simply something that would never happen. Except that it had. 

Tracy and Stephanie had been strictly forbidden to go out, their activities limited to the house and grounds. This additional constraint, combined with her lack of sleep and the residual tumult in her emotions left Tracy ragged. Even the three hours they had spent on the small sandy area of their property's shoreline sun-bathing and swimming in the warm waters of the sound had done nothing to alleviate her restless anxiety. 

Stephanie was growing increasingly concerned about her friend's rocky state of mind, frustrated that she couldn't get Tracy to discuss whatever it was she was feeling. "Com'mon," she told Tracy finally, catching up her beach chair, towel and tote-bag. "We need to find you something to take your mind off of whatever it is that's bugging you."

Nothing's bugging' me, " Tracy denied unconvincingly, staring off across the sound at the invisible New York coastline lost in a summer haze.

"Coulda fooled me, sister," Stephanie replied, putting her fists on her hips in exasperation. "So when are you going to tell me what the hell is _really_ going on with you and your husband, the gangster?" she asked, irritated.

"Vince isn't a gangster," Tracy retorted defensively, looking up at Stephanie from where she sat in the sand.

"That's not what it looks like from this angle," Stephanie countered, cynically. "Talk to me, Tracy."

Tracy sighed, her gaze returning to the vanished shoreline across the sound for a moment before she got to her feet, brushing the sand off her bathing suit and pulling on the cover-up. Silently, she picked up her belongings and walked with Stephanie back through the sparse and narrow band of woodland that separated the main grounds of the house from the beach.

They parted company at the top of the stairs, Stephanie heading down the hall of the south wing as Tracy walked across the gallery to the north wing. Stephanie made her way to the master suite forty five minutes later, having showered and dressed, to find Tracy curled in a corner of the big suede sofa in the master library, staring disconsolately out the tall windows. 

Stephanie sat down on the couch beside her and gently stroked the back of her friend's hand where it lay limply along her thigh. "Why won't you tell me what is going on?" she asked quietly. "Is it really so bad that you can't talk about it?"

Tracy sighed and turned to face Stephanie. "Tell me what this looks like to you," she requested of her friend, waving a hand in general indication of her life.

"You mean the house?" Stephanie asked, momentarily confused by the request.

"No," Tracy corrected, "the situation. What does your intuition tell you is going on here?"

Stephanie considered for a moment before answering. She and Tracy had always been able to tell each other the truth, no matter how unwelcome it was. She would not flinch from that now. "I'm looking at a woman who's totally in love with a man who could be a carbon copy of her father, at least the way you've described him to me. He's charismatic, decisive, and he obviously plays rough. You are married to a mobster and you live — if you can call it that — in this barn under armed guard. No wonder you're coming apart at the seams! You've got cabin fever! You've got to get out of here."

Tracy rested her forehead in the palms of her hand at this description, having known exactly what she would hear. "You have no idea what the hell is going on, Steph. I didn't marry Vince because he reminds me of my father. He's _nothing_ like my father. He's the most honest man I've ever known, and I can't even explain to you how I know that," she looked over at Stephanie, eyes swimming.

"Can't — or won't?" Stephanie asked quietly, trying to quell the astonishment she felt at this abdication of truthfulness, the basis of their friendship.

"I hate this, Steph. But it's more than my — or Vinnie's — or Roger's — lives are worth if I try and explain what is really going on. Please, please believe me. This isn't who I am — you _know_ that!" Tracy's reply was strangled.

"I did, before Vince Terranova moved in and swept you off your feet," Stephanie said slowly, at a complete loss as to how to handle the unprecedented leap of faith she was being asked to make.

Tracy's laughter was choked with irony as she turned to stare out the windows again. "I haven't changed, Stephanie. Not the way you think. I haven't gone back to the life I walked away from ten years ago, even though I know that's what it looks like. And not being able to tell you what's happening is killing me."

Stephanie stared at her friend for long seconds, knowing that she was hearing the truth as Tracy saw it, just not sure if Tracy's perceptions were trustworthy at this point. "You are losing it, sweetie," she said at last, pulling Tracy into a hug.

Tracy clung to the comfort of that embrace for a small eternity then straightened, wiping her eyes on the backs of her hands. "I'm a wreck," she observed resignedly.

Stephanie rose and made her way to the big library table with its' silver tray of cut crystal decanters. She picked one at random and poured a generous splash into a Waterford tumbler and downed it in a single swallow. She pored a second, larger portion, and brought it to Tracy. "Drink it. All of it. Right now."

Tracy took the glass in hands that trembled slightly and did as she'd been told.

"Alright, girlfriend, we are going to blow this pop-stand," Stephanie said grimly. "I'm busting you out of this place."

Tracy laughed shakily. "Oh, right. You and what army?" 

Stephanie's eyes narrowed. "We're women. We don't need an army. We have brains, not brawn, and we can beat any army out there with one arm tied behind our backs."

Tracy's brow furrowed. "What are you thinking?" 

Stephanie stalked around the room, reminding Tracy unaccountably of Lococco for an instant.

Stephanie paused, then turned to meet her gaze. "Which of the cars out front is the fastest?" she asked speculatively. 

"I don't know," Tracy said, considering this. "Maybe Roger's convertible. Why?"

Stephanie cocked an eyebrow. "You know where the keys are?" Her expression was devilish.

Tracy swallowed, knowing, even if Stephanie didn't, the enormity of what her friend had in mind. "Yes," she said. "But I drive."

"You betcha," Stephanie grinned conspiratorially. 

Stephanie tumbled into the passenger seat without opening the door, Tracy barely slowing down to let her in as she drove the little car past the house.

"Go, girl," Stephanie shouted as Tracy gunned the BMW down the drive in a hail of gravel.

Tracy could see Lococco and Hanley pelting out of the house and down the front steps in an attempt to intercept them, Roger calling out orders to the other two men who came running from the south wing. "Hit the remote," she shouted at Stephanie. "Open the gate!"

"Where?!" was Stephanie's frantic query as she yelled back over the rush of the wind. Tracy flipped down the passenger's sun visor, revealing the remote clipped to it. Stephanie hit every button on the thing, praying that one of them would trigger the big wrought iron gates into opening before they reached them. To her relief, they began to part.

Tracy floored the gas pedal, aiming the little charcoal gray car at the gap between the too-slowly opening gates, praying they would make it through. Less than half an inch separated them from a clean escape as the shriek of metal on metal tore at their eardrums. And they were through.

"Damn, Roger is going to be pissed," Tracy said, half laughing.

"Fuck im," Stephanie laughed back. "Open her up and let's see what she can do," she urged needlessly.

Lococco, adrenaline and rage flooding his bloodstream, was in a state no one cared to be near. "You — Hanley — bring the Benz!" he ordered the man as he rounded on the other two who stood panting from their abortive run down the drive. "And you two! Your job, your only job, is to keep the Terranovas safe, right?" he demanded rhetorically. He saw them brace themselves. "_So where the fuck were you when the little bitch was stealing my car_?!"

The Benz roared to a stop practically on top of him and Roger sprinted to the driver's side door as Hanley heaved himself over onto the passenger seat, making room for Lococco.

Roger moved the big sedan like a professional, making it cleanly through the still opening gates. He swept onto the paved roadway in a shrieking arc at nearly fifty miles an hour, aiming it in the direction of the BMW's tire tracks already marking the pavement.

Tracy drove with a recklessness she had only occasionally been tempted to, feeling the willing little sports car leap under her with every gear she advanced through. "He's going to catch us, you know," she glanced over at her friend who was trying vainly to keep the brunette hair out of her eyes.

"So what's he gonna do, kill us?" Stephanie laughed

"He just might," Tracy said quietly enough not to be heard over the wind of their passage.

Stephanie hit the power button for the stereo system. "Let's see what Mr. Lococco's taste in music runs too, shall we?" she grinned, activating the CD changer in the trunk in scramble mode. Springsteen's Born to Run' was followed by Welcome to the Pleasure Dome', an offering by the distinctly homoerotic band, _Frankie goes to Hollywood_. "Are you _sure_ Roger likes girls?" Stephanie asked cynically.

"I never said he liked them, just that he sleeps with them," Tracy retorted, struck by the incongruity of the idea of Lococco, the homophobe, listening to homoerotic rock.

They roared down the isolated country roads that separated them from their neighbors, the isolation having been one of the things that Lococco had insisted on. She began to catch occasional glimpses in the rear view mirror of the big black Mercedes that Roger pursued them in.

Lococco drove at the tolerance limits of the road and the big car's ability to handle it. The extra fifteen hundred pounds of armor plating the sedan carried gave him an edge in traction, slightly offsetting the loss in maneuverability. He knew he would catch them, eventually.

A small, detached, portion of his brain could admire the technique and control that Tracy drove with. She was running the BMW nearly flat out on the narrow and winding road, moving into the curves with exactly the velocity needed to send her shooting out of them with the maximum conserved momentum. Curses ran like a litany through his head, their rhythm matching the beat of his pulse. He crept up on them, now able to see the bronze and brunette heads over the folded down roof of the convertible. They passed in and out of view around the curves, more in view now than out of it. Beside him, Hanley sat tensely in his seat, a death grip on the hand hold over the passenger door window.

"You're right, he's going to catch us," Stephanie said, glancing back over her shoulder at the Mercedes that was now less than a hundred yards behind them.

"Hang on," Tracy said through clenched teeth. "I'll try to shake him."

"Go for it," Stephanie answered grimly, the reality of Lococco's likely rage behind them making her willing to risk high speeds on the narrow road to avoid coming head to head with it.

Lococco pushed the big sedan, knowing he was at or beyond its' maneuverability specifications. When the driver of the BMW in front of him slammed on the breaks and swung the car, fishtailing, around a hundred and eighty degrees to point back the way it had come, he could do nothing to prevent it.

It took him nearly a thousand feet to slow the Benz and find a spot wide enough to turn it around. The lead Tracy had gained would not hold up long, but even as angry as he was, the gutsiness of the move left him taut with mingled fear and admiration. It was beginning to look as if Mrs. Terranova had finally snapped.

Hanley's attention was riveted on the sports car in front of them. As the Mercedes began to erode the lead Tracy had achieved with her maneuver, he glanced over at Lococco, not liking the half crazed look in the man's eyes, or the manic and mirthless grin on his face.

Roger grimly pushed the big car, catching the sports car finally, and then passing it, slowly pulling ahead of it as his lead increased.

"What the hell is he doing?" Stephanie asked, not expecting an answer.

"I think he's about to challenge us to a game of Chicken'," Tracy said as she downshifted into a curve.

Lococco gave himself slightly more than a quarter-mile lead before he slammed on the breaks and swung the sedan across the road, blocking it completely. He had given himself exactly the margin necessary, he knew, as he watched the BMW come to a smoking, shuddering halt less than two feet from his door. He was out of the car and advancing on the sports car before it had completely stopped.

He had the driver's door open, a fist clenched in Tracy's blonde ponytail before she could stop him, wrenching her out of the car. "What the _hell_ do you think you are doing?" he hissed at her, the menace unfeigned.

He had reckoned without Stephanie, however. When fists came pounding at his kidneys and groin, he let go of Tracy to subdue the greater threat.

"You sonovabitch, you go right ahead and hit me. I'd like to see you explain it to your partner when you do!" Stephanie panted, using her smaller size and greater speed to its' full advantage against a trained — and very angry — bodyguard. "Don't you see you're _killing_ her?" she swore at Lococco, swinging at him again. "You fucking macho asshole! She can't live like this!"

Lococco managed to pinion her arms behind her back as he pulled her hard against his body to foil any attacks by knees or feet. "Hanley! Get the hell out here and hold the little witch!" he snarled at the younger man.

Hanley was out of the car and had assumed Lococco's grip on Stephanie before she could wriggle free.

"You -" Roger jabbed a forefinger at her, "are leaving. Right now. On the first plane I can get you onto." He turned his attention to Mitch. "Take her to the airport. Get her on the first plane back to whatever circle of hell she came from," he commanded.

Mitchell took his orders literally, thrusting a still-struggling Stephanie into the passenger seat of the Mercedes and securing her wrists to the hand hold with a cable tie, then he belted her in and slammed the door on her. Folding himself into the drivers' seat, he spared one glance at Lococco with Terranova's wife and thanked the gods that he was soon to be elsewhere. He pulled away from them with a rumble of the sedan's powerful engine.

Tracy stood her ground as Lococco advanced on her, not bothering to hide the shivers that wracked her. Adrenaline had fled, leaving her quaking with reaction. She forced herself to meet Roger's storm-gray eyes without flinching.

"Do you know what my job is, Tracy?" he asked her, voice barely above a whisper.

She made no response. He slammed an open palm against the side of the BMW at her back. "My job is to keep you and Vince alive. By any means necessary. That is what I signed up for. That was the mission. So what the _hell_ do you think you were doing?" To his surprise, Tracy met his eyes without hesitation.

"Running," was the simple response. "Because if I didn't do something — anything — this is going to kill me. I won't live like this, Roger. I can't."

Roger stepped back a few inches, eyeing her. "That's what _you_ signed on for, sweet thing, when you said I do'," he reminded her caustically.

Tracy stiffened, closing the scant distance between them. "In case it slipped your mind, I'm a partner in this little enterprise. A potential player. I am not some useless but decorative accessory that can be trotted out at socially opportune times and then put back on the shelf until the next time you and Vince need to make an impression. I'm a Steelgrave. It's time that started to count for something!" 

She met his eyes with anger of her own kindling the green there and Roger found his breath caught in his throat, an overwhelming urge to kiss her rushing over him like some unsuspected tide. And he saw her awareness of his sudden distraction, his break in focus.

She stared at him for long seconds, waiting for some sort of reply that never came. "I need to do more than drift around the house while the two of you go off, conquering universes and battling the bad guys," she said finally, brushing past him and rounding the hood of the car on her way to the passenger's seat. 

She settled into it as though she owned it, staring ahead through the windshield as Roger got into the driver's seat and started the car, distantly admiring the chutzpah, the sheer presence she showed.

He drove the twelve miles back to the house at a good clip, though nowhere near the speeds they had reached on their way out. Lococco remained grimly silent, attention on the road, contemplating Stephanie Price's unguarded accusations. He stole the occasional glance at Vinnie's wife, not liking the gray cast to her skin or the hollows in her cheeks and around her eyes. She had the look of a wild thing battering itself to death against the bars of its' cage. Price had been right, as had Tracy. A potentially valuable playing piece was being held in check. The woman had more than enough brains and courage to be an asset in the task they had undertaken.

What disturbed him was why neither Vince nor he had realized the true extent of her dissatisfaction. It bothered him that he had underestimated the depths of her frustration, and he found the greater part of his residual anger wavering, mitigated by her obvious unhappiness. He had been sloppy. In fact, sloppiness seemed to define his dealings with Tracy Steelgrave-Terranova. He had invested so much energy in denying what he felt for her that he had missed the fact that she was in this for the same reason he was — for Vince. Love, loyalty, respect, friendship, their reasons were identical. Only she had been allowed no outlet for the need to contribute to the effort they made. She had been asked for nothing beyond the cachet of her family name. It was no wonder she felt excluded, incidental to their plans. It was high time to make a place for her in this enterprise.

Stephanie stared straight ahead as Mitchell pulled the Benz to the side of the road and got out, coming around to her side of the car. He opened the door and cut her free with a small and very sharp pocket knife, then shut the door again and returned to the drivers seat, getting in and starting the car. He tried to ignore the anger that radiated from her like the reek from a swamp, hating the accusatory silence.

Stephanie rubbed her wrists where the plastic of the cable tie had dented and abraded flesh, angry as she had seldom ever been. She was tempted to rashness, and considered everything from throwing herself out of the moving vehicle when an opportunity presented itself, to beating the shit out of Hanley, leaving him by the side of the road and returning to liberate her friend. Realistically, she knew she had neither the strength nor training to overcome the man beside her, much less the house-full of bodyguards whose primary job description seemed to be that of jailers. But to meekly accept her fate rankled deeply. Her weapons were far better suited to the courtroom, her wits and tongue sharper than knives. Briefly, she pondered the possibility of bringing a complaint against Lococco and Hanley for assault. While what they had done certainly fit the definition, she doubted whether any cop would proceed on such an apparently trivial complaint.

Mitchell drove silently, the city rising up out of the haze before them, the lowering sun beginning to blind them. The energy crackling off Stephanie sparked over his skin like low voltage electricity, tingling, irritating, impossible to ignore. He broke the silence perhaps an hour from the airport, unwilling to let it continue. "Alright, say something," he requested quietly.

The glare she shot him was positively venomous. "And what, exactly, would you like to hear?" she asked.

"Anything would be better than the silent treatment," he retorted in the same tone she had used.

"Alright, you testosterone-poisoned moron, how's this? If I find out something has happened to Tracy, I will come after you, your employers and the rest of the dick-heads out in that bunker with everything I've got. And that includes the full weight of the law, buddy. And believe me, you do not want to wind up in court with me — I eat two-bit hoods like you as an appetizer, and I snack on assholes like Lococco and Terranova between meals. I promise to make your lives the same hell you're making Tracy's."

Hanley blinked, taking her at her word, knowing she could be a bitter enemy should it come to that. "Well, that sums it up nicely," he muttered. "Just so we're clear on this, Stephanie, I was hired to keep Tracy safe, not to hurt her. _You_ are the one who staged _The Great Escape'_, dragging her out into the open where she's a perfect target for anyone who wants to hurt her or her husband. So tell me, who's the moron here?"

Stephanie's glare was lethal. "Safe? She may be protected, isolated out there, but she's far from safe!" She turned back to stare out of the window at the city, now silhouetted by the setting sun. "Packing someone like her in cotton wool and locking them away is a guarantee of some kind of meltdown. And Tracy's right on the edge of one." Her voice was quiet, deep worry plain to hear there.

Mitchell was silent for several minutes, not knowing how to respond to this. Finally, tentatively, he reached across to lay his hand over Stephanie's lightly, the contact brief. "If it makes you feel any better, I'll do whatever I can to help her. But I don't know what it is that's eating her."

"I don't either, dammit," Stephanie sighed in heartfelt frustration. She turned to face him. "I'm going to take you up on that, buster. You keep those lovely green eyes of yours open. Get her help, if it looks like she needs it, even if you have to take on Roger and her husband to do it. And tell her _I_ said so!"

The first available flight to Seattle didn't leave till nearly midnight. Mitchell suspected that Lococco would take a dim view of his leaving his charge loose in New York. He had been assigned the task of getting her onto an airplane, and that was still to be accomplished. Peace had been reestablished between them, however tentative, and he took her to dinner to kill some time. The sexual undercurrent that had developed between them over the preceding days was returning, and he could sense her awareness of it — and of him — as they ate their meal. Conversation centered on Tracy, and finding a way to ease whatever it was that troubled her. Since facts were scarce, their speculations were merely that. Slowly, the conversation died away, the silence between them unstrained, though filled with their separate worries. Finally, settling the tab, he rose from the table. "Let's get you to the plane," he said.

She stood, meeting his eyes. "I'd rather you took me to bed," she told him bluntly.

"I don't think that would be a very good idea," he replied reluctantly. He was strongly attracted to this woman, her willfulness, her delicate beauty, her intelligence. But a relationship with her was fraught with pitfalls, not least of which was the distance that would separate them. He doubted his job would bring him anywhere near the West Coast as long as he was involved with the Terranova organization. "I'm a two-bit hood, remember?"

Stephanie smiled faintly as the epithet came back at her. "I take it back. You're a million-dollar hood," she told him. "And I am in serious danger of carrying a torch for you, kidlet. And I should be old enough to know better." She turned and walked away. 

He followed, caught by surprise at the confession she had just made. That it so closely echoed his own thoughts left him feeling strangely shaken. The realization that he could easily fall in love with this woman, given half a chance, rattled him. His life had been carefully free of emotional entanglements since the deaths of his parents and younger sister in a car wreck eight years before, and the sudden sense of vulnerability unnerved him. He escorted her to the boarding gate in silence, waiting with her.

"Watch out for her, Mitch. And if things get worse, call me," Stephanie said after a time. "I need you to promise me you'll be her friend." She looked up, fixing her dark gaze on his brilliant green one. "I think she's going to need one." 

Mitchell nodded slowly, taking the business card she handed him and tucking it into the hip pocket of his jeans. "I'll do everything I can," he assured her. He turned his head to catch the indistinct announcement over the airport P.A. and sighed. "That's your flight," he said, looking back at her.

"Walk me to the gate?" she asked.

He offered her his arm, and she took it, leaning close against his side, fitting there with comfortable ease. It was a subtle torture, walking her out of his life this way, and he struggled with regrets he couldn't articulate. They stood, alone amidst the crowds of passengers making their way to the boarding gate, staring at each other.

"It's been interesting," Stephanie said at last. "Who would have guessed that I would fall for a twenty eight year-old hoodlum on my summer vacation," she said with a wry grin. "Take care of yourself, Mitchell." She turned to walk down the boarding ramp, refusing to look back. His hard grip on her arm brought her to a halt, and he turned her to face him.

"And who'd'a thought I'd fall for a thirty-something D.A.?" he replied, pulling her into his arms and kissing her deeply, lingeringly, wishing he had taken her up on her offer of bed as he felt both her response and his own sweep through him like a gale force wind. Her arms circled his neck, hands in his hair, body tight against his own. The final boarding announcement was the only thing that could have forced him to step back from her. 

"Thirty five," she said, smiling wistfully. "Definitely old enough to know better."

"And smart enough not to care," he told her, kissing her cheek and stepping back. For him, the gap in age was irrelevant. He was rewarded with a genuine smile, one that lit her eyes like candle light.

"I am going to miss you, Mitchell Hanley," Stephanie said. "Especially in my bed." With that, she turned and disappeared down the boarding ramp and into the plane.

Tracy had headed up the stairs upon their return, shutting herself into the room that had been Stephanie's and slowly packing up her things. She had still not reappeared when Vince returned from his meeting with McLean, Falcone in tow. Roger took him aside and described the events of the afternoon, and his method of dealing with it. And then he presented Vince with his solution to the problem of Tracy. "We need a lawyer, Vinnie."

"What? Why?" Vince asked, not making the connection immediately.

Lococco shot him a look from under one eyebrow. "Because the chances are, legal council will be a necessity at some point in the not-too-distant future. And we happen to have one in residence."

Vince stared at him in bemusement. "You want me to make Tracy Consiglieri'," he said flatly. "Roger, women don't hold positions of power in the mob."

"And you've gone to a lot of trouble to make it clear you're not _in_ the mob, Buckwheat. You can put anyone you like into that role. Why not your wife?" Roger watched Vince carefully, seeing the reflex resistance slowly give way to reasoned thought. 

Vince began to pace the main library slowly as he considered this. "I don't even know for sure if she's licensed in New York," he said at last.

"Why not try asking her," Roger suggested sarcastically.

Vinnie glared at him in passing as he made another circuit of the room. The idea had merit on several levels, he grudgingly acknowledged. In fact, it worked at every level except that of safety. Letting Tracy step into that role would put her in direct jeopardy. As a husband, he hated the idea. But, as a husband, he realized his wife's happiness took precedence over his fears. He turned to Roger, at last, resigned. "I'll talk to her," he said. "Where is she?"

"Still upstairs, probably getting the demon-spawn's stuff together," Lococco said shortly, his opinion of Stephanie unmistakable.

Vince took the north stairs two at the time, entering the master suite and scanning first the library then the bedrooms for his wife. She was nowhere to be seen. Pausing in his search, he fished his cell phone out of a pocket and dialed the Lifeguard's number from memory.

"Sailor Hardware, Mike Terranova speaking. How can I help you?"

"Uncle Mike, it's me," he said, smiling.

"Hey-yah, Vinnie, how's the little woman? And her friend?"

"That's what I'm calling about, Mike. Trace is going stir-crazy stuck way the hell out here. Stephanie talked her into going for a joyride in Roger's Beemer, and they whacked up the paint job pretty good. Rog blew his cool and sent the holy terror packing back to Seattle on the first plane he could get her on," Vince gave him the condensed version.

Dan chuckled. "Why doesn't that surprise me?" he asked, amused. "How's Tracy taking it?"

"About like you'd expect," Vince admitted. "She's exiled herself to the guest bedroom in the other wing. But I think Rog has come up with a peace offering that may reconcile our differences. He wants me to make her _Pangea's_ legal representative. Effectively, make her our Consiglieri."

"McPike isn't going to like _that_ one little bit," Lifeguard said. "But it has a certain inevitability. And she's too smart to be wasting her time playing house out there."

"I need to get in touch with Sonny's old lawyer, Marvin Ketchall. I want to try to get Trace into his New York office with the promise of a big, fat retainer for all the business she's gonna be handling for us."

"I'll see what I can drum up," Mike agreed. "And I have a news flash for you on that shipment of plastic guns into Murakama Marine last month. The holding company that did the shipping looks like it may have ties to Torricelli."

"That doesn't make any sense," Vince protested. "Why would he ship something that hot to himself then leave it sitting on his pier and call us in to deal with it — and not turn a hair when we call in the ATF?"

"Hey, I'm not saying it makes sense," Lifeguard said. "I'm just telling you what it looks like."

"What it _looks_ like is a set-up. The only reason Paul's not behind bars right now is that we beat whoever it was to the punch. They must have figured on greed getting Paul to try and sell the things, making the connection between him and the guns air-tight. He'd've been tied up in the courts for years. Whoever this is, they're long range planners."

"Whoever they are, you and Lococco screwed up the works for them royally," Dan pointed out. "They're gonna be real interested in you real quick. Just make sure you keep someone on your wife. We wouldn't want her turning up dead." His tone was grim.

"Thanks for the reassurance," Vince snapped. "This is _not_ my first choice, Mike," he told the Lifeguard.

"Hey, I never said it was, Vinnie. Just take care of her."

"Always," Vince agreed.

He found her in Stephanie's room, asleep on the aqua silk counterpane, curled into a defensive huddle that made his heart ache. Stephanie's suitcases stood packed and waiting near the door, no trace of her remaining in the room. Gently, he sat down on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb Tracy. He watched her for a moment, then brushed the dark blonde hair away from her face. She stirred, not waking, turning to rest her cheek against his thigh. Carefully, he lay down beside her, wrapping his arms around her. She sighed, and slowly woke.

Tracy opened eyes gummy with the tears she had shed in the privacy of the guest room to see her husband's worried blue eyes focused on her. "Roger is a pig," she said wearily.

"And Stephanie is a hellion," Vince replied. "He told me what happened. I'm sorry, babe. But it was a stupid thing to do, and you knew it."

Tracy turned away from him, refusing to argue about it. "Go away," she said.

"No," he replied quietly. "For whatever it's worth, Roger said he's sorry. But I guess the two of you scared him to death with that stunt this afternoon."

Tracy remained silent, her hurt clear in the slump of her shoulders, her stillness.

"I'm here with an olive branch," he told her. "Rog wants you to come onboard as _Pangea's_ attorney. I have a call in to Sonny's old lawyer to see about getting you installed in his firm as our chief council." He saw the words register as the nature of her stillness changed. It was still several seconds before she turned back to face him.

"This was _Roger's_ idea?" she asked at last, her astonishment plain.

Vinnie nodded. "He's as worried about you as I am. And he's a lot less over-protective." He watched her assimilate this piece of news.

"Thank you," she said simply.

"You're welcome. But maybe you'd better say that to Roger," he said gently. To his amazement, she rose from the bed and headed out of the room. "Where are you going?" he asked, startled.

"To say that to Roger," she responded, visibly squaring her shoulders as she left the room.

Vince followed her, snatching up the suitcases on his way out of the room. He watched her ramrod straight spine as she preceded him down the stairs and into the main library, where Roger stood at the bar, fixing a drink for Falcone and himself.

Roger looked up as they entered the room, slowly putting down the bottle of scotch he held, his attention focused on Tracy as she crossed the room toward him. She still looked battered, but she no longer looked beaten, her eyes clear despite her obvious tears of earlier. When she stepped inside the perimeters of his personal space and kissed him softly on the cheek, he was caught completely unprepared. 

"Thank you," she said quietly, and turned and left the room, the rest of its' inhabitants staring after her in bemusement.

"You're welcome," Roger said into the peculiar silence in the room when she had gone.

The same silence, heavy with portents he was not equipped to decipher, enveloped his meditations that night. It held the same air of expectancy, of brooding presence that preceded a summer thunderstorm, a breathlessness he could not put a name to. A full trance eluded him that night, his consciousness caught at the crest of the wave that had swept through him earlier that afternoon as he had confronted Tracy in the middle of a country road. The impulse to draw her into his arms, to allow her to draw him in, in turn, into the heat of her body, the wellspring from which he craved a draught, the water of life to his parched soul, was overwhelming. He gave up at last, rising from his cross-legged seat on the floor of his bedroom, stripping off his loose workout pants and sliding nude between the coolness of the cotton sheets of his bed. Every nerve was sensitized with the same anticipatory hush that had so distracted him from his meditation, the touch of the fabric on his skin arousing him as would a lover's touch. When he could stand it no longer, he drew his hands along his own body, fantasizing Tracy's in their place, only her touch able to provide relief from the subtle torment of longing.

Mitchell pulled into the drive of the house at almost three in the morning, exhausted. He fell into bed without undressing and slept the sleep of the dead until he was rudely awakened at quarter after seven by Falcone's rough shake.

"Snap out of it, Sleeping Beauty," was Lou's admonishment. "I've been trying to wake you up for almost five minutes. There's a powwow in the diningroom. Lococco's cooking."

This was inducement enough to overcome even his sleep deprivation. He got to his feet and headed for the bathroom. "We finally getting the skinny on what's going on with the hit on Capuzi?" he inquired as he splashed water onto his face and dragged a razor over his chin.

"Yeah," Lou said, leaning against the door frame and waiting for him to finish his ablutions. "There's a couple of wrinkles that Vince wants us up to speed on."

"Like what?" Mitch asked, toweling off his face and walking back into the bedroom past Falcone. He changed his shirt, tucking the tails into the waistband of his jeans.

Lou grinned. "I don't have a clue. He doesn't want to spoil it for us," he told Mitch.

Hanley smiled back wryly, letting Falcone precede him out of his room and into the hall. "So how long have you been with don Aiuppo?" he asked as they made their way toward the diningroom.

"Since I was a kid, basically. He pulled me off the streets when I was sixteen, when I tried to pick his pocket," Lou admitted. "I was a rotten thief."

Hanley grinned at this. "So what did you do for him?"

"Whatever needed doing," Falcone shrugged. "Not too much heavy work — his wife, Vinnie's mom — didn't approve of that kinda thing. Mostly, I kept him up to speed on what was happening in la famiglia'."

"So you've known Vince for a while, huh?" Mitch observed as they entered the diningroom. 

Lou nodded. "Eight, maybe nine years, since his mom married Rudy. He's a good guy. When Rudy asked me to help Vinnie out when he brought him into this thing, I said sure'." He pulled a chair away from the table and sat, nodding at D'Arrigo and Blanchard who were already seated at the big table. "Mornin', " he greeted them.

"G'morning," Blanchard replied with a nod of his own.

"So, Mitch, what happened with Mrs. Terranova and her friend yesterday?" D'Arrigo inquired quietly.

"Lococco was totally pissed," Mitch answered, equally quietly. "Man, Mrs. T can drive like a bat outta hell. We're screaming down these windy roads, gotta be doin' near sixty, with Roger tryin' to catch her in the Benz. So we finally start closing the distance, and Mrs. T pulls this crazy-ass stunt, whipping that little pocket rocket around on a dime, to head back the way we'd just come. I thought Roger was gonna have a heart attack right there. It scared the shit outta us. Finally, he gets us turned around and he passes her, gets about a quarter mile ahead of her, and spins out, blocking the road in front of her. She stops before she hits us — barely — and Lococco is yanking her outta the car by her hair before she can do anything. I thought he was gonna kill her right there. Then her friend, Stephanie, lights into him like Sugar Ray Leonard. So he hands Steph off to me and tells me to get her onto the first plane outta New York. That's where I was last night."

The other three men exchanged speculative glances as Tracy, Roger and Vince entered the diningroom from the butler's pantry, bearing platters of food to add to what already loaded the table.

Mitchell watched Tracy Terranova clandestinely, searching her face and body language for evidence of her state of mind. She looked far calmer than he would have expected, given the events of the day before. Indeed, there was a poise and a self-confidence in her manner that told him immediately that something had changed. Dramatically.

When everything had been distributed around the table, the trio sat down in the chairs the rest of the men had left vacant for them, Vinnie at one end of the table, Lococco at the other, Tracy in the chair at Vinnie's right hand, next to Mitchell's.

Tracy handed Mitch a plate of omelets, and he helped himself to one, passing it along to Blanchard, at his other side. The silence continued through the passing of platters and bowls, until Tracy broke it. "I owe you gentlemen an apology for my behavior over the last few weeks. Hell, the last two months. I have been an unmitigated bitch to be around for reasons that have nothing to do with any of you. That, I hope, is about to change." She watched the wary exchange of looks among the hired hands, not surprised at the skepticism she read there.

"Vince and I have just hired her as _Pangea's_ chief council," Lococco announced to the waiting silence.

Falcone and Hanley exchanged astonished glances. "You're making your _wife_ Consiglieri?" Falcone exclaimed, his amazement inexplicable to Blanchard and D'Arrigo. "Vince, you really think that's the smart thing to do? The families are gonna think you've lost your mind."

Vince met the younger man's worried gaze. "Aside from the fact that I don't really care whether the families like it or not, we're going to be bumping into the law once in a while, while we figure out what the hell is going on. I don't want to be scrambling for legal help while one of us is cooling their heels in some lock-up. I happen to be married to some first class legal talent, and it would be stupid to let it go to waste. Besides, I'd say Tracy's made it pretty clear she's done with the housewife thing." The ironic humor in his tone made Tracy lower her eyes, coloring faintly in embarrassment. 

"But, Vince -" Falcone began.

"It's not open to discussion, Lou," Vince stated. "I want you to go over what Capuzi's security guys had to say, yesterday," Vinnie prompted.

Falcone hesitated a moment longer, then gathered himself together and turned to make eye contact with the rest of the men at the table. "Cal McLean is don Capuzi's main security guy," he began, for the benefit of those who had yet to meet Capuzi's men. "According to what he told Vince and me yesterday, rumors started to circulate about a week ago that someone has put a contract out on the don. He's been shaking the trees to see what he could find out, without a lot of luck. Since it doesn't look like it's stoppable, they're concentrating on keeping Capuzi protected. McLean asked Vince if we could back him up. Which is kinda like him asking the cops for help. I mean, Vince is family', but the rest of us aren't made. And we're a small outfit. Our man-power is limited when it comes to this sort of thing. But everyone's pretty freaked by this, and Capuzi isn't willing to pin his security on the local families, who may be in on it. Since Vinnie signed on as an independent operator, McLean figures he's the one to see about keeping things safe, but neutral. So we and Capuzi's guys are gonna be covering the don up-close and personal and Atlantic City will be handling perimeter security."

Mitchell frowned, then shot a quick look at Vince. "Will the Terranovas and Mr. Lococco be there?" he asked.

"Yes," Lococco answered. "It wasn't exactly P.C. to say no'."

"Well, it seems to me, our first job is to keep you safe. If we can keep Capuzi alive, that's gravy. We still haven't made any headway with our own potential shooter."

Blanchard and D'Arrigo nodded in agreement with this. "Yeah," D'Arrigo spoke up. "You're the ones signing our paychecks, not this Capuzi guy."

"The loyalty is appreciated," Vince began. "But the way I figure it, if you're all keeping your eyes open, everyone benefits. With Castaluccio's guys on the periphery, the chances of someone getting close enough to try anything are going to be slim anyway. What worries Rog and me is that a lot of the families will be there, and if one of them is behind this, they may be a bigger threat than any distance shooter. That's one of the main reasons Cal wants us there. The thinking is, if there's family involved, they may think twice before they conduct an execution in front of outsiders. Our being there may enough to prevent anything from actually happening."

Mitchell's frown had not abated. "We gonna get a walk-through of the location?" he inquired.

Roger nodded. "Friday," he told them. "McLean and Castaluccio's boys will meet us there for a dry run."

Mitchell used the excuse of bringing the BMW into a body shop for repair to mask his need to check in with his Lifeguard. He made the call while he drove in to the small hamlet that laid claim to not one, but three, import car repair facilities specializing in luxury vehicles. It struck him as noteworthy that the main drag was lined with pricey gift boutiques aimed at tourist dollars, rather than with business designed to serve the needs of the local inhabitants. He wondered if there was any place to buy something as prosaic as a crescent wrench or a loaf of bread. "Hey, Pops," he greeted Simon Wagstaff, his lifeguard, cheerily, having completed the identification ritual.

"Hey, kid. How's the prodigal son?" Wagstaff answered with equal cheer. "You know you're late for your check in." he added.

"Tell me about it. We had a little meeting this morning back at the ranch. Seems the threat to Capuzi's stirred up the ant's nest but good. McLean has recruited us as additional security for the bash, the idea being that Terranova and Lococco are independents so they aren't going to step on anyone's toes, protocol-wise."

"Hmmm. Definitely sounds like the honchos are nervous. Making a move against someone like Capuzi is a red flag for big trouble in the works. So who do Terranova and Lococco think is behind the play?"

"Their ghost', near as I can figure. I'll admit, I was skeptical when they first talked about their theory that someone out there in gangland is looking to topple a few empires, but too many weird things are going on for me to chalk it up to paranoid delusions. Not when we get word Atlantic City wants a meet to discuss some kind of joint venture down the line. And the boss-men have an assembly scheduled with — get this — some heavy muscle from Milwaukee, Detroit, Atlantic City, Chicago and Philly. A lotta people with a lot at risk are takin' this seriously. I'm gonna try to make myself indispensable before the end of the month so's I get an engraved invitation to go along."

"Just don't make yourself such a pain in the butt that you get it kicked. These guys are not fooling around, Mitch. With paranoia being the city-wide epidemic it is, you go tromping around in the middle of this, you're gonna set off someone's radar."

"Give me credit for knowing what I'm doing, Pops. I'll play it close to the vest. But if some opportunity presents itself, I'll use it to make sure Vince and Roger know I'm their guy. Whatever the job." He shifted the cell phone to the other ear and continued. "One other thing. They've just made Mrs. Terranova Consiglieri."

"What? You're kidding me!" was Simon's disbelieving response to this revelation.

"Oh, yeah. You shoulda seen the look on Falcone's face. I mean, he thinks Vinnie walks on water, so this was a hellova shock."

"I bet," Wagstaff agreed, sounding stunned. "Do the rest of the families know about this?"

"Not yet, but they will before too much longer," Mitch informed him. "Do me a favor and try to find out what you can on a shyster named Marvin Ketchall. He used to represent Vinnie's old boss, Sonny Steelgrave. They're planning on Mrs. T working outta his New York offices."

"Will do," the Lifeguard replied. "You got any other little surprises to spring on me?"

Mitchell laughed. "What, I didn't get your blood pressure up the necessary fifty points for you to feel the rush? Nah, that's it for the moment. This week's looking kinda fluid, location-wise, so I'll be checking in on the fly, when I can. It's tricky to make these kind of calls, out here in the back of beyond. No subtle way to get some privacy."

"It's tough all over," Wagstaff told him unsympathetically. "It's your ass that'll be in a major sling if all hell breaks loose and Rapisardo is the last one to know it."

"I'll keep it in mind," Mitch answered, still grinning.

ÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅÅ

Susan Profitt lay in her lover's arms, staring at the shadows that wavered on her ceiling, considering the inexperience of youth. Her partners had been limited to her brother and then Vince Terranova, until now. David Piccolini, in his untutored enthusiasm for her reminded her a bit of herself. Most of her sexual education had been at the hands of her brother, Mel. They had become lovers when he was not quite ten and she, not quite eight. It had been the one way she could comfort him when some torment had been visited on them by one or another foster family.

Mel had never been exclusive, taking then discarding lovers with casual disdain for any emotional tie save that with her. Women of extraordinary beauty had paraded through his bedroom as their wealth had grown, but it was always her bed he returned to. He had taught her what he had learned with each of those consorts, taught her to please him, and herself, showed her all the facets of intercourse, as they became revealed to him. Until Vince Terranova had entered her universe, she had never desired any man but Mel. But Vince had been completely outside her experience. He had wanted nothing from her that she was not willing to give him freely. Accustomed to being able to buy anything she wanted, discovering that Vinnie's affection was not a purchase she could make had been disconcerting. It had taken a fair while for her to discover that the only coin he would accept was her honesty. Though his initial flirtations with her had been direct, even bluntly erotic, once he had gained entry into their lives, he had not pushed her, realizing that her true affection lay with her brother. He had cared about what she felt, and she knew he had been drawn to her as she had been to him, his sexual interest tempered by a compassion for her and the course her life had taken that still left her moved. Yes, even now, as memory had slowly returned in the last weeks, she cared for him. But it was not love that had returned her to herself. It was not Vinnie's picture, not even the announcement of his marriage, that had roused her from the numbness of the past ten years.

It was the man who had stood at Vinnie's back, older, more worn-looking, but with the same unmistakable lethality that had characterized him when last she had seen him. It was hatred that had woken in her when that newspaper photo had impinged on her, bringing her to full consciousness for the first time in a decade. Roger Lococco, the man truly accountable for her brother's death, was the reason she now walked among the waking again. And was the reason she had departed from the world in the first place. As she resurfaced into the rhythms of the world, it was vengeance that fueled her efforts to regain her grasp on the present. Every action she had taken since her reawakening had been with one goal in mind. Roger Lococco would be made to experience some fraction of the hell she had existed in since her brother's death. Then, if he was particularly lucky, she would kill him.

Taking David Piccolini as a lover, binding him to her emotionally, learning what he could teach her about functioning in the brave new world that had evolved outside her time capsule existence, was the first and primary step in her still nebulous plans for Lococco. What astonished her was why Roger and Vince had kept company. The Roger Lococco she had known had been profoundly aloof from anything resembling the tenderer feelings, such as love or friendship. He had been the most emotionally isolated human being she had ever encountered. There had been nothing, no one admitted to his heart. Until now, apparently. Finding out exactly what the link between the two men was, what affection or loyalty held Lococco in Vinnie's orbit was the first action she intended to take.

Already, she and David were working on it, ferreting out anything that could be found in the press archives accessible from the internet. It was something they could work at in the open, an interest in newspaper archives easily explained by her mental absence of the last ten years. Other things, less benign, she had to delegate to him, things to be accomplished clandestinely, things that the hospital administrators would take an exceedingly dim view of. Things that included reestablishing contact with those elements of the criminal network she and Mel had created together that had survived Mel's death and her incapacitation. 

And reestablishing a financial existence that would permit her to fund her revenge had emerged as a necessity. She had a photographic memory, and it allowed her to recall unerringly every one of the multiple banks and account numbers as well as the other tangible assets that had once been hers. The ones on U.S. soil had, not surprisingly, been confiscated by the government under assorted tax law violations. The ones in foreign nations were proving more difficult to track down. Of her seven Swiss accounts, two of them had been mysteriously closed. A third had been largely emptied, and it was the only one of the remaining accounts that had showed any activity, most of it occurring over five years before. Since they were numbered accounts, anyone with her or Mel's signatures on a withdrawal slip could get into them. She had a vague memory of handing Lococco several such slips in the foggy aftermath of Mel's death. It would go a long way to explaining where he had come by his fortune, or part of it, at any rate. That was one thing they had managed to determine about Lococco in their investigations: his net worth, as near as they could discover, was in excess of two billion dollars. They had also managed to discover that he had transferred all of his publicly recorded assets into a holding company called _Pangea_, in which Vince was a full partner. Whatever linked the two men — whether friendship or blackmail or something else — they were now financial equals.

Susan was returned to awareness of the man in her bed as he caressed her tentatively. She turned in his arms and stroked him teasingly, feeling him harden instantly at her touch.

"I should go. They'll be doing the night rounds any time," Piccolini said reluctantly.

"There's time," she assured him. "This is usually the last wing they check. And I'm not finished with you yet," she told him, moving to straddle him across the hips, taking him into her body as he reached up to cup the fullness of her breasts.

They had cut it too fine, the last vestiges of his erection dying away as the sound of quiet footsteps echoed softly in the hall outside. He scrambled out of her bed, snatching his clothing and sprinting for the private bathroom, wedging himself behind the open door and holding his breath as the door was opened and an unobtrusive visual inspection of the rooms' supposedly sleeping occupant was made. He supposed it was fortunate that the room was large enough that the telltale scents of sex would be undetectable from the doorway. The door was closed quietly and silence fell once more. He emerged from the bathroom , pulling on his jeans, Susan having gotten out of bed to approach him.

"And where do you think you're going?" she asked, brushing her fingers over his bare chest, tickling him. "They won't be back for another four hours, and it's Friday. You don't have to work tomorrow. Stay with me tonight."

Piccolini kissed her hungrily, torn between the desire to stay, to engage in the sort of sex found heretofore only in his fevered imagination, and the very real fear of being found in a patient's bed in the middle of the night. "You're sure they don't come back?"

"I've been here for ten years, even if I've been a zombie for most of it. Believe me. They won't be back." She reached for the waist of his jeans, unbuttoning them and pulling them loose. "Would I lie to you?"

That, Piccolini knew, was a question he should probably concern himself with. But as her hands closed around him yet again, he would have believed her if she had told him he was the second coming. Or, as it happened, the fourth. Or perhaps fifth.

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Tracy tugged her suit coat into place and shut the car door after her, with a farewell to Hanley. 

"Good luck, Mrs. T," he replied as he pulled the Benz away from the curb, heading for the parking garage under the skyscraper in which Marvin Ketchall's New York law office was situated.

Tracy, Roger and Vinnie entered the building, the men flanking Tracy, their attention focused on the people that flowed through the lobby on their way in and out of the building, all senses attuned for anything out of the ordinary. The elevator ride up was silently uneventful and they got out on the seventy third floor, stepping into the reception area of Ketchall's firm. Roger gave the receptionist their names, and she straightened, clearly having been warned of their status.

"Mr. Ketchall is expecting you, sir," she told Lococco as she punched up an extension. "I'll have someone show you into his conference room." Then to the person on the other end of the line, she continued. "Ben, Mr. Ketchall's first clients are here. Please show them to the east conference room." She disconnected, turning her attention back to them. "Someone will be right out. Please, take a seat."

They moved to comply, but before they could seat themselves, a breathless lackey appeared to lead them to the conference room. They followed him into the depths of the offices, waving off offers of refreshment. They waited less than five minutes before Marvin Ketchall himself appeared. All three of them rose from the luxuriously padded leather conference chairs to shake hands with Ketchall.

Ketchall held Tracy's hand lingeringly, tuning the handshake into a gallant kiss to the knuckles of her hand. "My god, you look fantastic. How long has it been?"

"Over eleven years," she answered, smiling at her family's old lawyer, now in his early sixties. "I'd just been accepted to UCLA after doing that summer internship with you."

He shook his head in amazement. "I can't believe it's been that long. You don't look a day over twenty!" He looked away from her to the two men. "And now you're married. Marie showed me the society columns in June. God, I can't believe Dave Steelgrave's little girl is so grown up" he moved on to Vince. "Vincent, I haven't seen you since we got you off for failure to properly execute' after Sonny You're looking well. And you've obviously been busy."

Vince smiled, shaking the man's hand. "Obviously. Marvin, Id' like you to meet my business partner, Roger Lococco. He's the financial whiz in the outfit."

"It's a pleasure, I'm sure," Ketchall stated, moving to Lococco, gaze flicking over the lean man to Terranova's left, extending a hand. This one was definitely more than just financial whiz, he realized, recognizing the eyes of a killer.

Lococco dipped his in a single nod of acknowledgement. "Mr. Ketchall."

"So what brings you to me now?" he asked, getting down to business, waving them back into their chairs.

"Roger and I are opening an East Coast office of our holding company. We need legal representation in New York."

"Ah," Ketchall said, steepling his fingers as he held Vince's gaze.

"We also want Tracy as our chief counsel. It occurred to me that we could give your firm the business without dropping the whole work load on you if you bring her in as an associate."

"Not as a partner?" he asked warily.

Tracy smiled at him. "This isn't a take-over bid," she assured him. "What we're looking for is the umbrella a firm like yours can provide _Pangea_. We don't anticipate a large volume of case work from a criminal standpoint, but Vince and Roger would like me handling anything that comes up. As a former Prosecutor, I have a fairly good grasp on what it takes to put together a solid defense, though naturally I'd appreciate being able to draw on your experience and expertise. But business and corporate law is not my long suit. We are hoping we can hand off those aspects of the relationship to your specialists," Tracy sketched out the arrangement they were looking for.

Ketchall considered this silently, peering at Tracy Steelgrave over the tips of his fingers. He had hastened to check her credentials as an attorney when Terranova had first contacted him, and had even reviewed her cases. She had proved herself to be a gifted prosecutor. That she now wished to switch to defense was unusual, though not unprecedented. That she wished to assume responsibility for her husband's company could pose problems, however. "Conflict of interest could be an issue for you," he pointed out.

She nodded. "That was another reason we want the association with your firm. We need a fall-back position in the event that I am unable to present an effective defense. I'm well aware it would be awkward if I should have to defend my husband or his partner."

Ketchall nodded, appreciating the wisdom of this observation. "I'll discuss this with my partners," he began. "In the meantime, perhaps your current legal council could provide us with the charter for your company?" he asked Vince and Lococco.

Roger nodded. "I'll have our attorney in San Francisco fax everything to you today."

"That would be ideal," Ketchall replied. "I'll take this up with the rest of the firm today, depending on when we receive the information, and I should have an answer for you by tomorrow at the latest."

Tracy smiled at him with a certain affection and rose, her escorts standing in unison a second behind her. Ketchall rose as well, and Tracy risked a quick kiss on his cheek for old times sake. This was the man, after all, who had first set her on the path of the law. "It was great to see you again," she told him. "Give my best to Marie."

"She'd be glad to hear from you, Tracy," he smiled. "Give her a call."

"I'll do that," she promised.

They left the offices of Ketchall, Leonides, Grayson and Durkee, Attorneys at Law, riding down the elevator silently, Vince and Roger interposing themselves between Tracy and the ever-changing crowds in the elevator. They rode all the way down to the garage, having arranged to have Hanley pick them up at the elevators, and exited to find Mitch in the big Mercedes waiting for them dutifully.

"So what was your take on the meeting?" Lococco asked Tracy as they got into the car.

"I think he'll do exactly what he said he would. He may have been Sonny and my father's lawyer, but he's a lawyer, first. He'll take us on as long as _Pangea_ is organized along legitimate lines, if his partners agree. don't necessarily expect his business law people to be handling any of the deals you make with the mob, though. He may refer you to a specialist. It depends on what level of confidence he has in you. You can count on him checking your standing with the mob," she asked. "Who'll be vouching for you?"

Vince shrugged. "Aiuppo, Capuzi, Castaluccio, Torricelli, Maggioncalda, Weinstien — possibly — and Zanetti should be able to provide a few positive references. Depends on who he asks. But he was there when Sonny made me, at the ceremony at Capuzi's. He knows I'm mob. And when he gets a look at _Pangea's_ corporate charter, he'll see it's a legitimate business, with a legitimate profit. That should quell any jitters he or his partners have."

Tracy nodded. "I guess we'll see tomorrow."

Mitchell drove them to the Plaza Hotel.

Vince put down the receiver and turned to Lococco. "Looks like we have a New York law firm — and Tracy has herself a job."

"He'd have been a fool to turn down a couple of businessmen with a combined net worth over two billion," Roger said with a faint smile. "So when do we hammer out the details?"

"I think we can let our Consiglieri handle that," Vince told him. "That's supposedly what you hired her for."

"I stand corrected," Roger said ironically. "So who's going to be the bearer of joyous tidings?"

"I think it should come from you," Vince said after a moment. He met Lococco's eyes. "It was your brainstorm, and I'd like to see the two of you stop treating each other like enemies. Maybe this is the start of an alliance. She was blown when I told her this was your idea."

"Don't go getting your hopes up," Roger told him. "Let's see how this goes, first." He turned to head for the bedroom that Tracy and Vince had chosen.

Vince nodded, watching Lococco disappear down the hall. He prayed that the grip Roger had had on his temper for the last few days would hold up long enough to allow Tracy to overcome her inherent animosity for Lococco. 

"Keep your fingers crossed," Tracy said into the phone, looking up at the sound of Lococco's knock and entrance into the bedroom. "Uh-oh, the resident sociopath just walked in," she said, then immediately regretted it, as she watched the muscles in his jaw jump with suppressed irritation. "Love you, too, Steph. Yes, I'll say hi' to Mitch for you. No! I won't kiss him for you." She paused, her eyes not leaving Roger's. "No, I won't do that either," she added. "'Bye, sweetie," she said, hanging up. "I'm sorry about that crack," she said tentatively to Lococco, unsure whether the apology would be accepted.

Roger gritted his teeth against the unthinking sarcasm that trembled on his tongue and swallowed the anger, knowing a shouting match now was the last thing he needed. "Vinnie just got off the phone with Ketchall. You're in. He wants a meeting to work out the specifics. Give him a call and set it up." With this, he turned on his heel and moved to step back out of the room.

"Roger?" Tracy's query was hesitant.

He paused, hand on the doorknob, without turning around.

"I really _am_ sorry. And thank you. For everything. Especially for getting Vinnie off dead center on this over-protective phase he's in." Her voice was soft, still hesitant.

Roger shot a look over his shoulder at her, wishing his temper wasn't quite so touchy, wishing her uneasiness in the face of that hair-trigger anger were unnecessary, wishing that fear did not color her dealings with him. "You're welcome," he told her and left the room.

Tracy sought out Mitchell and conveyed Stephanie's greetings, even relenting enough to give him a swift kiss on the cheek from her. "This is a first," she told the younger man. "I think you made a conquest, Mitch," she told him, amused at the slight color this statement brought to his face. "You might want to give her a call sometime."

"I'm not so sure that would be a great idea, Mrs. T. It's not like we have anything in common. I mean, I'm a two-bit hood' and she's a DA for the city of Seattle. Not exactly a match made in heaven," he relied, regret obvious, even to her.

"Don't count on it," she said. "Look at Vinnie and me."

"Yeah, but that's different," he temporized.

"No, it's not," she smiled. "It's just on a grander scale. An lawyer for the State Attorney General of Washington and a made man? Tell me that's not a little strange." 

He nodded sheepishly. "Okay, but it's a little far to commute for a date."

"I'll grant you that," she said, grinning. "But you never know what might happen. I know Steph, and this is the first time I've _ever_ had her tell me to kiss someone for her. Good-looking male someones, anyway." She grinned as his blush darkened. "I shouldn't tease you," she apologized. "It's just mean. But call her. She'd love it if you did," she finished.

"I'll think about it," he agreed.

He could hardly keep from doing so, he realized, waking that night from a vivid dream of her with sweat and semen slicking his skin. The memory of Stephanie's mouth and hands on his flesh aroused him all over again, and he missed her fiercely. When he finally slept again, it was a darkness filled with visions of her.

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Tracy shut her briefcase on her copy of the contract she had just signed, and shook hands with the three men who had just accepted her as an employee'. She gave Ketchall a peck on the cheek, smiling at the other two partners who beamed at her congenially. "It's been a pleasure," she told them I'm looking forward to working with you."

"You'll be quite an asset to our firm," Patrick Durkee told her, pleasantly.

The small talk continued over the celebratory lunch they insisted on taking her to, and it was nearly three hours later before she arrived back at the Plaza to outline the details of the arrangement to her husband and his partner.

"So you'll be there three days a week. Does it matter which three days?" Vince asked, trying to keep the wistfulness out of his voice.

"No," she smiled at the tone he couldn't quite conceal. "I can pick the days, love."

"It shouldn't be that tough to deal with," Roger pointed out. "We just make sure your schedule and ours coincide and we come and go between here and Long Island accordingly. That way we have the majority of the guys in our vicinity, instead of split between the two places, at least for the moment." He caught Tracy's flash of unease, quickly masked. "Don't hesitate to speak your piece," he told her, sarcastically.

She glared at him. "I'm looking forward to the day that ensuring that we travel in packs is no longer your first concern. As I recall, my wedding vows didn't cover groups."

Roger's grin was nasty. "They say misery loves company," he retorted.

"They also say three's a crowd," she snapped back, getting to her feet and leaving the livingroom in a fury.

"You hadda piss her off?" Vinnie asked Roger ruefully. "I swear, I _will_ lock the two of you up together if you don't cut it out."

"She's going to have to deal with reality, Vince. There are people out there who want us dead. Until we know who they are and what their agenda is, groups is the _only_ way we travel. Tell her to get used to it." Roger's shrug was dismissive.

"Sugar-coat it, why don't you?" Vince grumbled.

"I'm not that kinda guy," Roger grinned.

"No kidding," Vince agreed. "Sweetness and light are definitely not your talents."

"Hey, you've known that for years, Buckwheat," Lococco said, quirking an eyebrow.

"That doesn't make you any easier to live with," Vince said with sarcasm of his own.

"But you love me anyway," Lococco grinned.

Vince eyed him cynically. "I oughta know better," he agreed.

Roger's smile was as nasty as before. "Have a nice evening, Buckwheat," he told Vince, heading for his room.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Vince asked, annoyed. "You provoke her then leave me to deal with her mood?"

Roger threw another grin over his shoulder.

"You are a real shit, Rog."

Lococco's laughter rang down the hall as he disappeared into his room and emerged moments later wearing his worn leather jacket, tossing his car keys in one hand, calling for Hanley to accompany him. "Kiss her for me," he told Vince as he hit the elevator call button, Mitch jogging down the hall from his room as the ornate doors opened.

"Bastard," Vince muttered as the elevator doors closed behind the two men. Sighing, he rose and headed down the hall to his room, bracing himself for a temper tantrum.

Tracy was in the bathroom, when he found her, about to step into the shower. He turned her to face him and tilted her face up, kissing her deeply.

"What was that for?" she asked, attempting to control her annoyance.

"Roger told me to kiss you for him," he told her, moved by some inexplicable impulse.

She stared at him for a long moment. "Why don't you fuck me for him too?" she demanded.

Vince eyed her for a second, considering this. "Why don't I?" he agreed, pulling her resisting body into his arms, mouth and hands finding her erogenous zones with skill and practice. Within seconds, her resistance dissolved into a demandingly eager response, his clothing removed with careless disregard for the integrity of buttons and zippers. As had been the case in the past, he recognized the correlation between the violence of their lovemaking and an argument with Lococco, confirming once again his instincts regarding her feelings for the man. Moved by instinctive rivalry and the aching, primal need to satisfy this woman's arousal in an attempt to assure her he alone could do so, he carried her to their bed, laying her upon it, and proceeded to make love to her with all the aggressive ardor she had stirred.

Roger pulled into the curb in a ramshackle neighborhood that made every nerve in Mitchell's body tense with anxiety. "What are we doing here?" he asked uneasily.

"Meeting a snitch," Roger told him, with a manic grin at Hanley.

Mitchell followed close on Lococco's heels as they made their way down the sidewalk toward a porno theater that had seen vastly better days. The weight of the pistol in its' shoulder holster was less comforting than he might have hoped, and he wished it were in his hands, safety off. "Where's this snitch supposed to meet us?" he asked softly as they made their way down the alley alongside the theater.

"Right here," came a voice from the shadows behind a dumpster. A tall, lanky figure stepped out into the fading daylight of late afternoon. "You Lococco?" was the question, asked around a smoldering cigarette that dangled from thin lips.

"You Vance Boccarinni?" was Lococco's reply.

The man nodded briefly. "I told you to come alone," he said flatly.

"This is as alone as I get with Brandon Castellano out there somewhere looking to plant me, Buckwheat," Roger dismissed the complaint.

"Yeah well, you're not the only one he's hopin' to get in his sights," Boccarinni informed him.

"This is a news flash? You'd better be able to do better than that, or our relationship is going to be extremely brief." Lococco remarked with his usual sarcasm. "How bout I show you mine. Then if you've got anything to compare to it, we'll talk. Castellano is hoping to put holes in me, my partner — Vince Terranova, Vinnie's wife, Rudy Aiuppo and maybe even Chero Capuzi for starters."

The man nodded once, dragging on the cigarette. "For starters," he agreed, smoke trickling out of his nose and mouth like a fog. "He's looking to even the score with everyone he figures stiffed him outta Brooklyn. And he's got the Genoveses backing him."

"My understanding is that Eboli won't involve his guys in a shooting war just for the sake of Castellano's vendetta," Roger said, crossing his arms over his chest and staring at his erstwhile informant.

"Eboli won't, but he's got allies who may be considering it," Boccarinni said laconically. "You ever hear of a guy name'a Balagula?"

Roger didn't respond, shifting his weight restlessly.

"He's the don of dons for the Russian mob. And the Russians are bugshit crazy. They'll go after your _dog_ if they figure you owe them something. We don't mess with a guy's family, but they'll line em up in front of a wall and shoot em, down to your great grandmother Myrtle if you mess with them. They're in business with the Genoveses, and even those guys cross the street when they see em comin'." 

Roger dropped his arms to his sides, his demeanor betraying his sharpened interest. "And they're buying into Castellano's drama?" he asked intently.

"Hell, they're giving him a standing ovation," Boccarinni said ironically. "Stay the hell away from Brighton Beach," he added. "They'll be happy to cap you if you give them half a chance."

Lococco nodded, reaching into the inside breast pocket of his leather bomber jacket and extracting a half-dozen hundred dollar bills. He extended them toward Boccarinni, who shook his head. "It's already taken care of, man," he told Lococco. "Castaluccio always covers it, up front."

Lococco tucked the bills into Boccarinni's shirt pocket. "Consider it a tip. Vinnie and I like to pay our own way. Give our regards to the don."

Boccarinni dragged on the cigarette again, exhaling the cloud of blue smoke to one side. He managed a crooked smile. "Pleasure doin' business with you," he said, removing the bills from his shirt and stuffing them into a hip pocket. "Want me to keep you posted on anything Robbie's boys dig up?"

"Definitely," he agreed. "And there'll be something extra in it if you get it to me first."

Boccarinni raised his hands, placatingly. "I don't go behind my don's back," he answered firmly.

"I'm not asking you too," Lococco replied calmly. "Just don't put us at the end of the gravy train."

"You got it," Boccarinni agreed, turning and disappearing back into the shadows he had materialized from.

Lococco shook his head, musing on the odd phenomenon of honor among thieves. Vince and Boccarinni had apparently gone to the same school, judging from their refusal to compromise certain codes of behavior and certain loyalties in the face of casual temptation. He turned to Hanley, who had stood silently at his back through the exchange. "Let's get outta here," he told the younger man.

Mitch willingly accompanied Roger out of the alley, his attention focused on the streets and buildings they emerged among, staying close to Lococco's back, covering him bodily. The conversation he had just been witness too reran itself in his head and he knew he needed to talk to his field supervisor. If the Russians were involved, the situation was every bit as dangerous as Terranova and Lococco's instincts had told them it was. 

"So what do you know about the Russian Mob?" Roger asked Vince that night.

"Not much. The FBI dropped the ball big-time on it, as far as recognizing them as a threat, so basically, they didn't begin prosecuting them until the mid-nineties. Some theories have them being even more insidious — and more violent — than the Italians. Why?" Vince asked curiously.

"Because I got a call from Castaluccio this morning telling me he had a man he wanted me to meet who had a little information we might find helpful. That's where Mitchell and I went, earlier." Roger shifted in his chair, staring into the glass of scotch he held before continuing. "You ever hear of some Cossack named Balagula?" he looked up to meet Vinnie's eyes in inquiry.

"Sounds like Dracula's cousin," Vince grinned, then thought about it for several minutes before answering. "No, I don't think so," he began, then reconsidered. "Isn't he one of the more powerful Russian dons?"

"Don of dons, according to Castaluccio's man. And he's allied with the Genoveses. He also may be giving Castellano a hand with his vendetta."

Vince went still. "That may be a major problem," he said grimly. "Everything I've heard about them says they're crazier than Mel Profitt was. And a whole lot meaner."

Roger met his gaze, equally grim. "That's not exactly doing anything for my peace of mind. Something tells me we aren't going to be sleeping much until we know for sure," he replied.

Vinnie nodded slowly, forehead furrowed in worry.

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Mitch stepped out into the basement gymnasium of the Plaza Hotel at quarter after midnight, looking around to determine who else lingered in the space. It was echoingly empty, and he headed for the men's changing rooms, snatching a towel from the stack on the ornate table by the door. He got out of his street clothes and into a swim suit, then headed for the pool. He was perhaps forty five minutes early for his meeting with Rapisardo and had elected to take advantage of the Plaza's facilities to kill the time and burn off some of the nervous energy that griped him.

He swam with single-minded concentration until a life jacket was dropped into the water inches from his nose, making him start and bringing him to a thrashing halt as he tangled himself in the straps, sputtering. He raised his head and began to tread water, looking up to see Leon Rapisardo, arms folded across his chest, glaring down at him, the toes of his wingtips hanging an inch or so over the edge of the pool.

"So what do you think you are, white boy? The man from Atlantis?" Rapisardo asked sharply. "Everyone outta the pool."

Mitchell grinned up at him and hoisted himself out of the water with a splash, sloshing water over his field supervisor's shoes and pant cuffs.

Rapisardo shook each foot in turn like a cat with water on its' paws, glowering at Hanley. "Smart-ass," he snapped, throwing Mitchell's towel at him forcefully.

Mitch caught it effortlessly, grinning. "Let's take this somewhere a little less public," he suggested, leading the way to the saunas, ignoring Leon's glare of annoyance as he opened the door and led the way inside. Rapisardo shucked both his overcoat and the already wrinkled suit coat, hanging them on the hooks provided for the robes patrons could don upon exiting. The small wood-lined room was, unsurprisingly, steamily damp and scorchingly hot, and he felt the sweat start on his skin nearly instantly.

"I'm gonna bill you for dry-cleaning this suit," he told Mitchell irritably, seating himself on a bench opposite from the one Hanley occupied. "So what the hell is so important?" he demanded.

"Geeze, you're cranky," Mitch observed good-humoredly. "What would you say if I told you it looks like there's a definite possibility that the Russians are helping out Castellano?" He watched his field supervisor sharply, noting the sudden tension in the big man's body.

"Shit," was Rapisardo's comment at this unwelcome piece of news. "How sure are you?"

"Not completely, but it was presented as a possible theory by some hood Lococco and I met in an alley downtown today. I think he was one of Castaluccio's boys, from what he said. Seems some bone-breaker named Balagula, who's supposedly the head don out at Brighton Beach has an alliance with the Genoveses. And it's possible that they may be supporting Castellano's little war on Vince and Roger."

"Balagula and Eboli hammered out a pact about six years ago," Leo said, drawing on his trained memory to marshal what few facts he knew on the subject. "The OCB has lost a half dozen agents trying to get inside his operation. The Russians are criminal psychopaths who got handed a get-out-of-jail-free card when the U.S. opened up immigration to oppressed Jews' from the Soviet Union in the eighties. The KGB saw their chance to empty the gulags and export their worst criminal masterminds over here and to Israel. Thanks to the Jewish power lobbies sounding off about discrimination, the FBI has been lagging for years in investigating and prosecuting the bastards, so now they're entrenched every bit as deep — and sometimes deeper — than the Italian Mafia in the criminal enterprises of our fair nation."

"Well, it looks like Vince and Roger's conspiracy theory is starting to look like it might fly. What do you want me to do?" Mitchell asked.

"Stay with them. Keep your eyes open. What's the latest on the Capuzi shindig?" Rapisardo wanted to know.

"We've done the dress rehearsal with Capuzi and Castaluccio's boys. The party is Saturday night. But I'm tellin' you, Leo, it's a perfect place for Castellano to try something."

"Well see that he doesn't succeed. We're gonna need you hangin' with Terranova until we start getting a better idea what's actually going on. But as far as breaks go, this one is the shits. The Russians are the next big thing, and we're a day late and a dollar short on it all the way down the line. It's a game of catch-up until we can get something to turn the tables on them. Right now, sad as it sounds, you're the great white hope'."

"Thanks for the pep-talk," Mitchell laughed, knowing better than to take his field supervisor's grousing personally. "How's the wife?"

Rapisardo glared at him. "You go out of your way to be obnoxious? Or do you come by your charming personality naturally? I'm sleepin' in the guest room for the duration. That answer your question?"

"Whoops," Mitch grinned. "Sorry. Didn't mean to step on toes." He sobered. "Seriously, Leo, what's the OCB planning on doing if the Russians are involved in this somewhere?"

"When I know, I'll get back to you," Rapisardo told him grimly as he got to his feet and retrieved his suit coat and raincoat from the hooks he'd hung them on. "Watch yourself, kid. This could turn ugly real fast. And I don't want to be filing paperwork on your death in the line of duty."

Mitchell looked up at his supervisor gravely. "Thanks, man," he said. "Sorry things are dicey with Sandy."

"We'll work it out. We always do. G'night, Hanley." Leon opened the sauna door and stepped out into the temperate air of the basement gym with relief.

"G'night, Leo," Mitch said softly as the door closed on it's pneumatic hinges. He remained in the sauna for another half hour, sweating off the last of the nervous tension that had plagued him all evening since the expedition to the alley in the city. When he returned upstairs to the suite, it was nearly three a.m. and he was finally ready to sleep.

Lights in the study off the livingroom caught his attention as he stepped off the elevator into the marbled foyer. Curious, he headed towards it, sticking his head into the room to see Lococco staring into space, his attention clearly elsewhere. The laptop computer was open on the desk in front of him, the screen saver weaving gyrating geometrics across the LED screen. "Hey, Roger?" Mitch asked quietly. "You need anything? I'm heading for bed."

Lococco blinked, refocusing on the room with a start. "No," he said shortly, then sighed. "Thanks for tagging along this afternoon, Buckwheat," he added, his tone less sharp. "Call Lou in the morning and get him in here. One of you will need to keep an eye on Mrs. Terranova the rest of the week, not that she'll like it, but tough shit." He turned away, gaze dropping sightlessly to the computer screen before him. Mitch recognized that he had lost the man's attention and turned to walk away. "God damn the woman."

The softly muttered curse from Lococco was so quiet, he wasn't sure at first that he had heard it, and he paused, ready to turn back to ask what Roger had just said. Then the words processed and he continued on his way, knowing better than to get into the middle of whatever grievance Roger currently had with Tracy. The friction between the two was unpredictably violent, erupting after days of seeming peace. He wondered what it was about Tracy that set off Roger's short temper. He found the woman personable, perceptive and just downright attractive. When she was relaxed and in good spirits, she was a great deal of fun to spend time with. He understood her dislike of the stringent safety measures Lococco had implemented, but had to side with the man. Especially if the Russians were involved somehow, she could not count on her gender to protect her. Especially not now that she had been admitted to an active role in _Pangea_. 

Still thinking about her, he dropped into bed and a series of dreams that he would remember very little of upon waking. The only thing he would recall was that Tracy Steelgrave Terranova figured largely in them, and they had been dreams of which his mother would not have approved. Nor would Tracy's husband, or her best friend, either, for that matter. 

The weekend of Capuzi's party broke the long stretch of beautiful early fall weather that had graced New York since the end of August. Abruptly, the warm spell broke and Tracy woke that Saturday morning to the first light dusting of frost. It warmed quickly, and by the time the household had been loaded into the two largest of the cars for the trip into the city, the chill of the morning was forgotten in the escalating warmth and mugginess that signaled an arriving weather front.

The dogs had been boarded at a local kennel for the weekend, over Roger's protests, when Tracy refused to leave them unattended on the property. "There's no one here to protect, Roger, and we can't take them into the city," she told him emphatically. If something happens, I don't want them injured. It's just a house. _Stuff_ can be replaced, and besides, we've got the highest of hi-tech security systems. The house is perfectly capable of looking after itself for two days."

Roger had held his tongue with the greatest of difficulty, his native paranoia leaving him sensitized to a host of dangers, probable or otherwise, in leaving the house unattended. The greatest problem was that it smacked of slipshod security. He had reluctantly settled for a call to the local constabulary, who had promised to drive by occasionally to monitor the property after he made a generous donation to their Police Athletic League.

Arriving in the city, Tracy had gone on a shopping expedition, dragging along Hanley as porter-cum-bodyguard. She was vastly entertained when he entered into the spirit of the thing and rounded up a selection of virtually every sort of female formal attire for her to try on, offering his opinion when she emerged from the dressing rooms to model the more successful ones. He was extraordinarily critical of the majority, and it was at his insistence that they made their way to the designer formal wear departments. He made her try on dresses whose price tags would have exceeded her monthly income as a prosecutor, and she balked at the idea of spending that sort of money for something she would wear less than a half dozen times before fashions changed yet again.

She settled, at his urging, on three selections: two Vera Wangs and a Givenchey. The Vera Wang dresses were simple, one long, one tea length. The long one was basic black silk satin with spaghetti straps and a slimly fitted bodice that widened out into a slightly flared skirt slit daringly up the back to mid-thigh. It was a dress designed for dancing. It was devoid of decoration, and it fit her like a second skin. The widening of Mitchell's eyes when he saw her in it was what decided her on paying the astounding price tag. She wanted to see that look on her husband's face. The tea-length dress was a simple mandarin style with the typical collar band that laid up against her neck, elaborately knotted frogs in the exact color of the emerald silk of the dress running from throat to below the knee. It was fitted, only the slits up the sides, again to mid-thigh, giving the hem enough leeway to allow her to walk. Both dresses combined a demure formality with daring sexuality, the fabrics showing off every curve of the body they covered. She was going to have to work out before she wore the black one, she thought.

The Givenchey was what she intended for Capuzi's party that night. It was formal, and demure without any of the overt sexuality of the other two. In short, admirably conservative, and eminently suited to attendance of a birthday party for an aged Mafia don, as a married woman. The sex was best left to those women present who had yet to snare husbands, in the traditional chauvinistic Latin male mindset. It flattered her, and managed to make her look conservative without dowdiness. It was otherwise unspectacular, and therefore perfect for the role she was to play that night. It also clearly eluded Mitchell why she would opt for — as he put it — hiding her light under a bushel.

"It doesn't do anything for you, Mrs. T," he said, draping the garment bag over his shoulder as he followed.

"That's the point," she said. "This party is for one of the oldest dons in New York. I'm a married woman, and therefore, a Madonna. I'm already rocking the boat as _Pangea's_ Consiglieri, so dressing to kill is the last thing I want to be doing." She glanced at him to see whether this argument was sinking in, catching his shrug. "Besides, that black number would give the old guy a heart attack," she grinned at him.

He grinned back, conceding this point. "Where to now?" he asked.

"Let's get you fitted for your Tux," she said cheerily, ignoring his grimace.

It was her turn to ogle the merchandise, as he was fitted for black tie. She could see, as he stood resplendent in his tux, exactly what Stephanie saw in him. He was every bit as studly as Steph had pointed out the first time she'd met him. She let her appreciation for the view show in her turn, then smiled at his blush. "Steph was right, you're a total babe," she said, watching the blush deepen, enjoying the flirtation.

They returned to the Plaza and sent the rest of the men out for their fitting while Tracy spent time going through her laptop, organizing the information Ketchall had downloaded to her regarding basic firm policies and documents. Vince and Roger had disappeared on some mysterious jaunt into the depths of the city's underbelly to meet with McPike, who had been recruited to arrange for observers at the affair that evening, so that if something untoward were to happen, there would be official documentation of it. 

At quarter after five, she settled in the livingroom with a cup of some astringent green tea Lococco favored, and tried to keep from worrying about them.

McPike was in a foul mood, and it took an effort of will to keep his temper in the face of the deluge that commenced as he set foot outside the Manhattan garage that had been the site of his clandestine meeting with Terranova and Lococco. He had listened to the concise description they had given him of the security arrangements that they had worked out with Capuzi and Castaluccio, and then informed them where the OCB's observers were to be stationed. He was anxious and unhappy with the several _de facto_ announcements the two agents had made, chief among which being Tracy's appointment to the role of Consiglieri. That he had heard about it from Hanley's field supervisor before he had heard it from them directly was the chief source of his mood. He did not like surprises of that magnitude, and it irked him that Terranova had a true genius for pulling them on him. 

The men's request for help with their domestic arrangements was also a source of irritation. That they had specifically requested that he insert an agent into their household as a live-in maid was vaguely insulting. And yet it was the perfect place from which an agent could be expected to monitor the comings and goings in the household. With Hanley inserted into the palace guard, able to ride herd on the various field trips that occurred, it would make OCB coverage of the Terranova organization fairly thorough. And with bugs planted in all the guest and hireling's bedrooms, as well as the common rooms, an agent in that position would be able to listen in and record relevant conversations among employees and guests. Fortunately, when Lococco had renovated the house, he had had fiber optics strung through out the place. Before they had moved in, the OCB had cheerfully installed a vast array of hardwired listening devises designed to be virtually undetectable to even the most current debugging equipment, excluding the master wing and one of the upstairs south wing bedrooms that Lococco proposed occupying. It was an outstanding arrangement, and he only wished that every operation had such cooperative subjects. 

He was resigned to assigning one of his baby agents as housekeeper and cook, and intended to spend his weekend looking for a likely candidate among the current crop of rookies. Lilla was not going to be pleased.

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David Piccolini crept back onto the grounds of Lakeview Hospital at well after midnight. Breaking into the casually secure building housing Susan was relatively straight forward, as was sneaking up to her room. She welcomed him eagerly, undressing him as she questioned him concerning his expedition out to Long Island, and the house Lococco had recently purchased there. She let him satisfy their mutual desires before insisting on hearing what he had discovered.

"Man, it's wide open, from a security standpoint," he told her as he stroked her naked body. "I guess it just goes to show you, even if you've got a shit-load of money, you don't always get what you pay for," pleased when she opened to him. He wasn't exactly overburdened with experience when it came to pleasing a woman in bed, so small successes were a pleasant surprise for both himself, and for Susan. He hoped.

"Mmmm deeper, David," Susan directed gently, enjoying being in the position of instructor. "What do you mean, wide open?"

"It's this big barn of a place with nothing around it. They've had the whole house hardwired for fiber optic connections. The Feds were obviously tipped off to them and their business', cause they've loaded the place with bugs. They musta wet their pants when they saw it. They've plugged their fanciest passive surveillance gear into it. If I go out there tomorrow, I can piggyback my equipment right onto theirs, and they'll never even spot it unless they do a physical inspection. The place is completely empty this weekend, so I can get in there and position it without them being any the wiser. The bugs were delivered to my place three days ago, and I've finished modifying them. The only thing is, I've still got to rig some sort of listening post I couldn't figure out how far the Feds took their fiber optic cables away from the house, and I'm not so sure it's a good idea to be setting up my stuff anywhere in the vicinity of the FBI, anyway. What I really need is to get Terranova and Lococco to hire me. That way, I can monitor it right under their noses."

"What are fiber optics, exactly?" Susan wanted to know, unclear on what he was talking about.

He described them as simply as possible. "Think about it as a bunch'a fishing line. You know, lots'a strands all gathered together in a cable. Light transmits down the length of the filaments but not from side to side. It's just about the perfect way to transmit information, cause there's virtually no leakage from the sides of the cable. See, there's basically no resistance to overcome, so there's no good way to trace it, or spot it when information is being transmitted. Most bugs rely on transmitting by radio or other EM spectra, and any receiver tuned to the transmitter frequency can pick it up. That's how they usually sweep for them." He came into her, distracted from his tutorial by more urgent matters.

Susan permitted the interruption, letting her mind provide the erotic fantasy of her preference. David's casual mention of a personal infiltration of Lococco's organization both excited her with the possibilities such access would allow, and left her feeling strangely lonely. She would hardly have thought she would miss the slightly awkward young man in her arms, but he was growing to remind her surprisingly of Mel, before he had become completely unstable. Both of them were brilliant, amoral, and deeply susceptible to the temptations of her feminine flesh. She was under no illusion that he loved her, or that she bore him anything more than passing affection, but ten years of utter solitude made even that something to savor.

When they had eased the first press of their passions, they resumed their conversation, Susan initiating a change of subject. "Have you heard back from whoever it is that's running S & M Profitt Enterprises yet?" she asked. One of the first things she had had David determine was whether or not Mel's and her old company still existed in any form recognizable to her. That it did, and that it had been paying the hospital bills for the last ten years on her behalf was a source of relief. They had been working on reestablishing contact with someone in a position of authority who could work on effecting her release from the hospital, and it was from there that they had been able to obtain the state-of-the-art surveillance devises that David proposed installing in Lococco's house. She had also begun paving the way for the eventuality of release with her therapists. By this time, she was conversant with the things that were considered psychiatric red flags and was careful to avoid them. She had dwelt lingeringly on her supposed marriage to Vince, and had let Dr. Spencer gradually determine that it had been an engagement, rather than a wedding that had happened between them, just prior to her complete mental collapse. They had worked' on that particular issue extensively, and Susan had been careful to transition from grief and outrage at his recent wedding and on to reluctant then comfortable acceptance of that fact. In point of fact, he was a fond memory, but she would never forgive him for incarcerating her in this place. She would have hoped that he could have learned from her example and simply put her out of her pain. If getting to Lococco entailed going through Vince Terranova, it would not stop her. Revenging herself on Roger was the fire in her belly, her sole reason for caring whether she ever got out of this insular little universe she had inhabited for so long. Enlisting Piccolini's aid to that end had been completely without difficulty. Between the lure of her flesh and simple greed, she had garnered his total cooperation. The fact that by pulling this off, he would see the last of his basement office at Lakeview was an added inducement.

"Yeah. I have a name for you. Monday, when we go online, we'll contact him and see if we can't get them to start finding a way to get you out of here. I don't want to quit until I know there's some way for me to see you," he added, kissing each breast in turn, then moving lower down her body, exploring her yet again. His fascination knew no limits, and he would be willing to fuck this woman anywhere, any time, under virtually any circumstances. That simply by helping her, he had permission to do so was sufficient inducement even without the wealth she promised him. Already, he had set up local bank accounts in her name that had been funded by her Swiss accounts, and she had arranged for a generous weekly stipend to be transferred into his bank automatically. If they could convince the reigning corporate powers at S & M Profitt Enterprises to effect Susan's release, he looked forward to indulging his penchant for her more frequently, and far more openly. Still experimentally, but with growing self-confidence, he used mouth and hands to arouse her yet again, relishing the taste of her, enjoying the awareness of her orgasm in the clenching and trembling of her muscles. Yes, life was definitely looking up.

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They arrived at the hotel in which Capuzi's party was slated to occur well ahead of everyone but Capuzi's and Castaluccio's security teams. Lou Falcone was assigned the task of keeping an eye on Tracy and the two adjourned to the hotel bar, well content with their lot. The rest of the infant Terranova organization gathered in the company of the other security teams and went over their assignments yet again. Castaluccio himself was there, his concern for his elderly mentor's safety very real.

"I've got my guys in the kitchen and stationed at all the elevators," he told the rest of the assembly. "They've been over the ballroom with a fine tooth comb once already, and they'll be doing it again just before the guests start arriving. So far it's clean. No bugs, no weapons. The catering staff have all been checked out, and they're clean, too. When things get going, you're going to be circulating with the guests. Look for anything that seems out of place. If you spot anything, let one of my guys know, and we'll escort' them out of the room, no fuss, no muss." Rob Castaluccio met eyes all around, his brown gaze lingering for the barest moment on Hanley's.

Mitchell's sensors were tripped by that brief assessment and he covertly watched the Atlantic City don as the man continued his briefing. He had been warned about Rob Castaluccio's reputation when he had first told Rapisardo that the don would be at the gathering as the guarantor of Capuzi's safety. With the man's unbelievable good looks, it didn't surprise Mitch in the least that Castaluccio used it to his advantage. He probably would, too, in that position. He wondered, idly, what Stephanie's take on Castaluccio would have been, suspecting that he would never have gotten close to her if she had spotted the delectable don first. He was very glad she hadn't. 

Terranova and Lococco were given the task of remaining within a few feet of the old don during the evening. As potential targets themselves, as well as able-bodied defenders, they were the only two men in the gathering who would be allowed the privilege of carrying weapons. Neither Castaluccio nor Capuzi had any objections to this, realizing that the two had had multiple opportunities to kill the old man should they have wished to.

By the time the festivities commenced, everything that could reasonably be done to ensure Capuzi's safety had been. Mitch spent the night circulating as he'd been ordered, always remaining within a set radius from his own employers, who in turn, lingered in Capuzi's vicinity. D'Arrigo and Blanchard did likewise, never moving further than thirty or forty feet from their charges. 

Vince and Roger's attention was focused primarily on the ebb and flow of party-goers who approached the elderly don to congratulate him, searching for the telltales of someone with more on their agendas than expensive champagne and canapés. They were well aware of the hooded looks a number of the dons outside their acquaintance cast in their direction. Many of them made a point of introducing themselves, clearly interested in meeting the upstarts that had gained the inside track with Capuzi and his circle. Among them was Thomas Eboli's right hand, a man named Gerardo Catena, attending in his don's stead. 

"So, Vince, what have you been doing with yourself since Sonny's empire collapsed?" he asked, the glint of deliberate steel in his tone.

Vince straightened fractionally, feeling Roger's attention focus on him from his position ten feet away. A fleeting and humorless smile ghosted across his face as he considered a response. "Besides defending myself against slugs like Tony Grecco, you mean? Not much, just putting together a little empire of my own with my partner, Roger Lococco."

Lococco, catching his name, materialized at Vinnie's elbow like a wraith, dangerous energy crackling around him.

"Ah, yes, your personal hitman," was the unimpressed retort to Lococco's sudden materialization.

Lococco smiled, the expression reminiscent of a wolf's snarl.

It registered as the threat it was intended to be, and Catena took an involuntary half step backward. 

"I'd be happy to show your boys a few things," Roger offered calmly, shifting slightly, his body language conveying the seriousness of his intent. "A friendly reminder, Catena. Tell your boss that he's heading for major trouble if he interferes with Vinnie or me. And if we find out he's involved somewhere in this palace coup against don Capuzi, he's looking at trouble with a half-dozen of his fellow investors. We were brought in to clean house and find out who's making the mess in the first place. Trust me, he's not gonna want to be found with the shit on his hands." Roger's smile never wavered. "Have a nice evening." With this, he drifted away again.

Vince smiled pleasantly at Catena "You were saying?"

"He could do with a personal tutorial from Miss Manners," the Genovese _cappo_ said grimly, watching Lococco wander toward Capuzi.

"Oh, that _was_ polite. I suggest you don't go out of your way to piss him off, or he'll make your average street thug look like a charm school graduate. It takes major brass to stay ahead of the CIA for over ten years, especially if you refuse to move to Tibet for the duration." With this, Vince smiled again and departed, leaving the Genovese's man in place staring after him, obviously pondering the significance of this run-in.

He joined Roger in Capuzi's company, smiling at Rudy Aiuppo, who stood with his old friend. "Well, you sure know how to win friends and influence people," he said to Lococco with a grin.

"It's a gift," Roger grinned back at him. "Maybe he'll go back to the Genoveses with a little more respect for the opposition."

"We are not opposition, not yet," Aiuppo corrected. "Do not go out of your way to provoke them. War will not benefit any of us."

"Au contraire," Lococco said, smile fading. "Vinnie's mastermind is lurking somewhere out there, licking his chops at the thought."

"Let's make sure we don't give him the satisfaction, then," Capuzi interjected. "What progress have you made toward identifying this man?" he asked Vince.

"I've got a full briefing scheduled with you and the rest of the dons in two weeks, don Capuzi. With respect, I'd like to keep it close to the vest till then. Since all of you are paying our salaries, you should hear it at the same time. Besides, we shouldn't be talking business. It's a party."

Capuzi's eyes narrowed at this gentle demure and then he nodded slightly. "Very well, Vincenzo. We'll do it your way. For the moment." He turned away, dismissively. 

Taking their cue, Vince and Roger drifted away.

Mitchell had watched this interchange with interest. He recognized the Genovese man by sight, having been briefed on that organization's upper hierarchy. The calculated antagonism Catena had displayed had been met with Lococco's equally calculated menace. It was interesting to note that it was not Roger who had blinked first.

"He can handle himself," came the quiet observation at his elbow. 

Mitch turned to see Castaluccio beside him, his eyes fixed on Lococco and Terranova where they stood together. "Mr. Lococco?" Mitch inquired. "Yeah. I wouldn't want to get on his bad side."

"Still, he'd better watch that temper of his. The Genoveses don't take kindly to threats." Castaluccio turned his gaze to Mitch. "How long have you been with them?"

"Not long," Hanley informed him. "I was working on the docks, at Murakama Marine, before Vince and Roger bought it from Paul Torricelli."

Castaluccio nodded, appraisingly. "That would explain the physique." He grinned at Hanley's startled glance and the faint color that brushed his cheekbones. "You happy with their outfit?"

Mitch eyed the don warily, wondering at the reason for the question. "I haven't got any reason to complain. It's better than the docks, that's for sure. And the pay is a damn site better too. Why?"

Castaluccio shrugged. "I'm always looking for a few good men," he said flippantly. "Seriously. If you get bored, come see me." He flashed a perfect smile at the young man, amused at the dazzlement in the green eyes.

Mitchell stared at the Atlantic City don as the man casually drifted off to join some conversation in progress among a group of his fellow dons. He wondered what Rapisardo would say when he told him he had been hustled by a pro like Rob Castaluccio. He turned his attention back out into the crowds, absently, scanning for the odd or out-of-place in the activity around him.

Hanley could not have said what about the man first caught his eye. He carried his silver tray of appetizers with a flourish, a polite smile fixed on his face. It was a face that described a heritage that hailed from some Slavic state, with his dark hair and eyes, and the slightly swarthy complexion. Ordinarily, considering that New York was home to a multitude of immigrants from around the world, it wouldn't have registered on him. But there was something peculiar in his body language. Mitchell watched him make his way, seemingly at random, around the room, offering the delicacies he bore to the guests he encountered. The random path, however, brought him circling slowly in toward the small group that eddied around Capuzi, a group that currently held Vince Terranova, who was engaged in animated conversation with another guest. Slowly, without haste, Hanley made his way toward his employer, careful not to move in such a way as to alert the waiter to his interest. 

He was perhaps fifteen feet away when the waiter drifted across his path, making his way deliberately toward Capuzi's group. Mitch, from his position, was the only one who could have seen the carefully casual reach inside the red cut-away jacket. He launched himself at the waiter in a leap that carried him into the man's back, throwing his arms around the man, pinioning him. The force of his tackle brought both of them sprawling to the ground in a sliding fall that carried them to the feet of Capuzi and his small entourage. Mitchell's grip on the man suffered under the thrashing blows that connected with kidneys, solar plexus, ribs in a desperate struggle to escape. That the man uttered no word, no imprecations, made the whole thing seem like some slow motion fight scene from a bad action film, Mitch thought dizzily as a fist collided with his jaw, followed by the butt of a small pistol. The blow brought him to the edge of unconsciousness and his grip faltered. Dimly, he heard the cries of astonishment and panic from the guests, and under that white noise, the sound of Vinnie's big Colt being cocked. As he lost consciousness, he heard Terranova's grim warning to freeze. Relieved, he stopped fighting the black tide that rushed over him, descending into that welcome darkness.

Vinnie leveled the pistol in his hand at the red-coated waiter who had succeeded in incapacitating Hanley with a blow to the temple using the little matte-gray weapon he held. The man took one look at the big gun aimed at him unwaveringly, and froze as he'd been ordered. Lococco, who had appeared, apparition-like, reached down and confiscated the little gun, tossing it under-hand to one of Castaluccio's men who had come running as all hell had broken loose. Ungently, he hoisted the man to his feet, immobilizing him in a choke hold until Castaluccio's man could hand off the weapon to a cohort and take over. 

The assailant was removed ignominiously from the room and the stir the attack had caused began to die away to an excited, nervous hubbub. 

Tracy had not wasted any time in reaching Hanley's body where it lay tumbled artlessly on the patterned carpet of the ball room, gently straightening twisted limbs before raising each eyelid in turn. Already, a good-sized lump was swelling to life on Mitchell's left temple, and the beginning of a bruise was darkening his jaw. It wouldn't surprise her if he came out of it with at least one black eye. He stirred under her hands, then sat bolt upright, all fight-or-flight impulses fully engaged. "Whoa, there, Mitchell, it's alright! We got the bad guy," she told him, steadying him as vertigo left him rocking erratically. "Maybe you'd better lie back down for a minute," she suggested, seeing the ashy color his skin had taken on upon sitting up.

"I don't feel so hot," he agreed, letting her help him back down to the floor.

"I'm not surprised," was Castaluccio's dry observation as he knelt beside Hanley to gently examine the lump on the younger man's temple. "You took a hellova knock." He rose again, speaking quietly to one of his men who departed at speed to accomplish whatever task his don had set him. With consummate charm, he herded the apprehensive guests toward the bar, assuring them all was well, that the threat had been neutralized, and that there was no reason not to proceed with the party.

Capuzi and the small crowd around him moved off as well, leaving Lococco, Terranova and their men hovering around Mitchell's prone body. "Kevin, Lou, stay with the don. I doubt there'll be any more trouble, but I want him covered, just in case. Alex, I want you to keep an eye on Catena. I don't know if he was involved in this, but I want him to know we're paying attention." There were confirmations all around as each man went off in his assigned direction.

"You saw the gun?" Roger asked Vince quietly when they were alone.

Vinnie nodded. "Oh, yeah. What do you want to bet it'll be traceable to that shipment of plastic guns Torricelli had decorating his secure room on the docks two months ago?"

"Sucker's bet. Whoever set this up, they had the whole thing worked out before that shipment ever left its' point of origin. We know where that was, yet?" Roger asked.

Vince shook his head. "Light a fire under someone's ass in the DOJ and get some answers. It's a piece of information we'll need in order to make sure Paul wasn't involved. I doubt he was. This is probably just more of the same harassment. But I'm not gonna take that on faith, at this point. We cover _every_ possibility. No matter how slim."

Roger nodded shortly. "I'll get on it as soon as we're outta here." He stepped back as a pair of flustered hotel employees appeared to clean up the spilled hors d' oeuvres from the floor around Mitchell. Seconds later, a pair of EMTs arrived and assumed responsibility for Hanley. They worked quickly and quietly, loading him onto a gurney and wheeling him off, Tracy on their heels. "You'd better go with her," Roger told Vince.

Vinnie shook his head. "You'll have too. There're going to be some ruffled feathers to sooth, and let's face it, Rog, you're as likely to work them up as calm them down."

"The same could be said for my effect on your wife, Buckwheat. But you're the boss. Just do me a favor and stick with Capuzi so our guys don't give themselves whiplash trying to keep the two of you in their sights, okay?" Roger waited for Vince to agree to this stipulation before he left, jogging after the departing EMTs.

Vince joined the still anxious guests milling around in the vicinity of the bar, quickly collared by Castaluccio and led to one side for a whispered conference.

"Your boys do nice work," Rob complemented approvingly. "Better than mine. No one carrying anything more lethal than a pocket hanky should have been able to get that close."

"Don't be too hard on them. You had them using metal detectors, right?" Vince asked.

Castaluccio nodded, forehead furrowed, puzzled. 

"It was a plastic gun, Rob. Probably from the same batch Paul wanted us to get rid of for him in July." Vince watched the limpid brown eyes widen, harden, as the implications of this sank in. "I'll need it back to confirm that. And I'm gonna wanna talk to the hitter."

Castaluccio nodded slowly. "I'll make sure my boys don't damage him until you've seen him. I'll have Grifasi stop by your place in town with the gun tonight. That soon enough?"

"I'd be more comfortable if I could take it with me. And have your guys get a set of prints. Our contact in the NYPD Crime Lab can run them for us, and she can do a comparison on the gun, too," Vince informed him.

Castaluccio raised an eyebrow. "Very convenient," he said, warily. 

"And pretty damned expensive," Vince agreed. "You can thank Rog and his aptitude between the sheets. She wised up in a hurry, but lab technicians don't make shit. She's got an apartment in Manhattan to finance, and a salary that wouldn't cover a bet at one of your high stakes games," he grinned. "So we supplement her income — actually, we almost double it — and she blinds us with science every once in a while." He smiled faintly, watching the Atlantic City don assess this explanation. 

Finally, Castaluccio nodded. "You have a knack for surrounding yourself with useful people," he observed dryly, still skeptical.

"I surround myself with Roger. _He_ surrounds himself with the useful people." Vince grinned.

"Then I guess you're lucky you've got him as a partner," Rob said, voice laden with implicit double entendre, his brown eyes warm again, his interest unmistakable.

Vince laughed softly. "Very," he agreed, playing along. He continued the increasingly overt flirtation with good humor, while making it plain he was as far from serious as it was possible to be. The party resumed some of its' former gaiety as the guests relaxed under the liberal application of the alcohol poured out to calm frazzled nerves. It was another two hours before Vince managed to take his leave, and only by pleading concern for his injured man was he able to pry himself loose. Castaluccio handed over both the gun and a set of amateur fingerprints that would nonetheless serve admirably to identify the failed assassin. He said his good-byes to Capuzi, receiving the obligatory kisses on the cheeks that signaled the old man's gratitude, agreeing to call the don the next day with whatever information he managed to obtain.

When he stepped out of the hotel's porche cochiere into the drizzle, his troops at his heels, he breathed a sigh of relief. He turned on his cell phone and checked voice mail. Both Tracy and Roger had left messages updating him about Hanley's condition. It seemed that he had sustained a moderate concussion in addition to some spectacular bruises, and would be remaining in the hospital overnight. He dialed Roger's cell number from memory as he waited for the valet to bring the car around. Lococco finally answered on the seventh ring, his temper obviously frayed.

"What?" was the sharp inquiry. 

"It's me," Vince said. "Anything new on Mitch?"

"No. But unless you want your wife to join him in the hospital tonight, I suggest you come get her." Lococco's ire was unmistakable.

"I want both of you at the hotel," he said to Roger, torn between amusement and anxiety at yet another flare-up between his partner and Tracy. "I'm leaving the party now. Rob will take care of closing things down here. Stuff her in a cab and get yourselves back to the Plaza. We're going to need to do a little post-game analysis."

"Who are _you_, John Madden?" Roger's tone was ironic, some of the peevishness fading.

"Just call me coach'," Vince grinned. "See you there." He hung up without waiting for Lococco's confirmation.

Vince beat them back to the Plaza Hotel and put coffee on to brew, pouring himself a cup once it had percolated through. He offered it all around to the men who milled restlessly around the livingroom. They accepted to a man, settling into various pieces of furniture. By the time Lococco and Tracy arrived, the worst of the adrenaline generated during the course of the evening was beginning to dissipate. The two new arrivals secured cups themselves and joined the rest of them in the throes of discussion. 

"How's Mitchell?" Vince asked, the first thing out of his mouth.

"He'll be fine," Roger replied.

"If you don't count a black eye, three cracked ribs, a concussion and a whole assortment of nasty bruises," Tracy snapped at him. "He's just dandy!" 

Lococco scowled. "Alright, he's banged up a little. He'll live. Nothing's permanently damaged. Okay?" he said shortly to her.

"Thank you!" she retorted. "Geezus, it's not serious if there's not copious bloodshed?"

Roger sighed and looked at Vince with a slight shrug. "We have a difference of opinion. So what else is new?"

Vince eyed his wife. "Why don't you give us the whole picture?"

"I just did. He's battered but unbloodied. At least mostly unbloodied. He saved Capuzi's life, or maybe yours. I suggest you give him one hell of a bonus." Tracy glared at her husband, daring him to say something.

"Done," he agreed, then he continued, looking at Roger. "I have a set of prints and the gun. I want you to take it to your police lab contact tomorrow to see if we can find out who this guy is." He saw Lococco's faintly furrowed brow, signaling subtle confusion. He acknowledged it with the slightest shake of his head, promising, in their private shorthand, to explain later. "Tell me what you saw."

Roger leaned back in his chair, thrusting his long legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankles. "I didn't have the best view," he said. "From my angle, all I saw was Hanley go for the touchdown. I didn't really see why till I got there and snagged the gun. He was seeing something I missed, that's for sure. My radar never went off." This extraordinary admission made Vinnie's eyes widen in surprise. Lococco's almost extrasensory awareness of danger had been nearly infallible in his experience. Roger caught the look and shrugged again, defensively. "Hey it's not the first time, Buckwheat. Castellano's guy would never have gotten close enough to cut you in February if I'd been looking in the right direction."

Vince ignored the sudden sharpening of D'Arrigo's and Blanchard's looks. "That wasn't your fault, Rog. I should never have gone on ahead alone. It was stupidity, not anything you did — or didn't — do. You shoulda come back from that guilt trip months ago." It bothered him that Lococco was still brooding over that perceived error in judgement on his part. "So what _did_ you see tonight?"

"I told you. Not enough." Lococco answered flatly. He saw the narrowing of Vinnie's eyes and sighed. With long practice, he blanked his features and simply repeated the facts as he had witnessed them, flashing on his misspent youth in the military and the reports he had been required to present to superior officers. "The perp looked like a waiter to me. I'd seen him making the rounds of the room and I was more interested in keeping an eye on Catena." He saw Vince's heightened interest in this revelation. "What?"

"What was Gerardo doing when the guy made his move?" Vince asked intently.

Roger straightened, realizing why Vince wanted to know. "Nothing. He was as surprised as everyone else in that room. I'd swear to that. That's why it took me so long to get to Hanley." 

"So what does that tell us?" Vince asked the three hirelings, in the manner of a teacher expecting an answer.

Falcone hesitated, then spoke up. "It looks like he wasn't in on it. So either the Genoveses aren't behind the attack, or Catena was outta the loop."

Vince nodded. "Interesting, isn't it," he said to Roger.

"Finding out more about the shooter should give us a clue which it is," Lococco agreed.

"I'll leave that to you," he told Roger, then glanced at the rest of the room's occupants. "Anyone else see anything worth mentioning?"

Tracy shook her head ruefully, having been trapped in conversation with several donnas who had quizzed her extensively about her position in her husband's company.

D'Arrigo and Blanchard shook theirs, as well. "Nah," Blanchard said with a hint of bitterness. "I was trying to keep my attention on too many things, so I wound up missing the one important one."

Vince smiled faintly. "It happens. That's why we work as a group. That way, one of us is bound to spot anything that goes down. don't sweat it. Consider it a learning experience."

"You sound like my high school coach talking about blowing the big game," D'Arrigo said dryly.

Vinnie laughed. "He was right," he said. "Stupid as it sounds. It's the mistakes you tend to remember, and find a way not to make again. Ask Rog, sometime. He's seen me make a few doozies." 

Lococco grinned briefly. "Vice versa, too," he added, recognizing Vinnie's instinctive morale boosting efforts, surprised, but approving. Their men were still green as grass, with the exception of Falcone, and it would be counterproductive to let them waste any more time worrying over supposed failures. "For the record, any time you come out on the other side of a piece of action like the one tonight with all your fingers and toes, you can consider it a success — especially if your client does, too."

Tensions in the room dropped a few more degrees and with Tracy's departure for bed, it signaled an end to the day. The men trickled out over a space of about ten minutes, leaving Vince and Roger alone in the livingroom.

"So what was all that about my Police Lab contact?" Lococco wanted to know, voice soft.

"I told Rob that we had connections inside the NYPD Lab so I could get ahold of the gun and had a reason for asking for a set of prints," Vince told him, equally softly. "You'll need to get it to McPike tomorrow."

Roger nodded. "Just so I know, who is my supposed friend'?"

Vinnie grinned, eyes crinkling. "An underpaid, under-sexed female lab tech with expensive tastes in Manhattan apartments," he replied.

Roger eyed him cynically. "Yeah, well, if she's one of _my_ contacts, she's sure as hell not likely to be under-sexed, Buckwheat." With that, he headed for his own bed with Vinnie's chuckle lingering in the air behind him, reflecting on the irony of that assertion in light of the fact that he hadn't bedded a woman in the three months since Vinnie's wedding. As usual, in the aftermath of any flurry of violence, his body was flooded with all manner of hormones, and only one way to bleed them off. Even the cold shower he took failed to unstiffen his loins. He lay awake long into the night, fantasizing about the feel of Tracy's skin against his own, the warmth of her body in his arms, the taste of her on his lips, her scent filling his senses, falling asleep at last to the imagined presence in his bed.

He was awakened the next morning at daybreak by a quiet flurry of activity outside his door. Heedless of his state of undress, he rose and stalked to the door, opening it and stepped out into the hall. Falcone rushed past, and Lococco caught him by the arm "What the hell's going on?" he demanded.

"Mrs. Terranova's leaving for D.C. in an hour. Her mom's dying," Lou told him, trying to ignore his employer's well-built nakedness, succeeding save for the faint color that dusted his cheeks.

Roger nodded, letting the man go. "Tell her to wait for me. I'll take her," he told Falcone, who nodded dutifully and headed for the livingroom.

Lococco got dressed in seconds, tucking a single change of clothes into a satchel along with the plastic gun, his OCB ID and the folded sheet of paper that held a set of smeary fingerprints. If he had to take them to McPike, it might as well be to the Director's D.C. office, he mused as he headed for the livingroom.

Tracy stood in Vinnie's arms in the middle of the room, cheek resting against his collarbone, her eyes red and swollen with crying, oblivious to the activity around her. She felt Vince stroke her hair gently, kissing her on the forehead with tenderness and shared grief.

"Thanks for taking her, Rog. I'll try and get up there this afternoon, if I finish up with Capuzi's guys by then. I'll leave the cell on. Call me if you need to," Vince said over Tracy's shoulder to Lococco as he entered the room, seeing the nod of acknowledgement. He looked back at his wife, raising his hands to softly brush the tears off her cheeks before kissing her. "I'll be there as soon as I can," he told her quietly as he dropped his hands from her arms. Tracy stepped away from him and walked forlornly down the hall toward the elevators. "Take care of her, Roger," he said to Lococco as Roger turned to follow her.

Roger glanced back at Vince with a second, silent, nod as he got into the elevator behind Tracy and D'Arrigo, who had volunteered to drive.

Roger had left Tracy alone at the hospice briefly, while he dropped the spoils from the previous night's excitement off at the DOJ with a request for McPike's lab people to rush the results. He returned and took up residence in a waiting area, reading idly through several years worth of Time and Newsweek magazines to pass the hours. Tracy emerged from wherever it was her mother had been put, once, briefly, while Rita Steelgrave's doctor had checked in on his patient and adjusted the painkillers to ease her way. He had asked the doctor, when the man had returned from his ministrations, how long he expected the woman to linger. 

The doctor sighed and shook his head. "It won't be much longer. Are you Tracy's husband?"

For the smallest fraction of a second, Roger flirted with saying yes', then denied this. "No, just a friend. Vince was unavoidably delayed. He's going to try and get here on the first afternoon shuttle."

"That may be too late," Arnot said grimly. "She's slipping in and out of consciousness. I'd be surprised if she lasts till noon. If you can get word to him, you might want to do so."

"Thanks, Doc. I'll do that," Roger agreed. He watched the weary-looking medical man depart and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialing Vinnie's number without hesitation. Not surprisingly, he got voice mail, and left a terse message with the essential details. He seated himself and picked up yet another magazine.

Vince returned his call at a quarter to eleven with the news that he was on his way to the airport at that moment, and expected to arrive in D.C. by twelve thirty at the latest. Lococco promised to let Tracy know when he saw her next, and told Vince that they would wait for him at the hospice.

He folded his cell phone back into its' compact little case and shoved it into a pocket. This was one of the first times he had been present at a death, however peripherally, that was not in any way due to violence. Natural causes had had no place in his world of predators and prey, and he abandoned his absent perusal of outdated news to contemplate mortality, his own, especially. 

The realization that there would be virtually no one to mourn his death, however it came, was one he could no longer sublimate. If human life was measured by the impact it had on the lives around it, he viewed himself as an abject failure. He had spent his life destroying things, meaning to or not. Only in the last few years had building things become the focus of his efforts. And even this was essentially meaningless with no one to leave those things to. For the first time, he regretted his inability to allow other human beings into his heart. The few who had found their way inside his fierce barricades had done so without invitation on his part, without his conscious choice. And he could only rarely overcome the solitary habits of a lifetime to acknowledge to them, as well as to himself, how deeply he cared for them. Having learned at a tender age that caring hurt, he had slowly and with deliberation built defenses against those feelings, allowing them to turn from the concrete affection for individual people and places to the abstract love for a set of ideals he had then betrayed, however unintentionally.

He wondered how different his life might have been, had he had a family that had viewed him as something other than an imposition, a burden to be foisted off on institutions that could see to his upbringing in the impersonal way of the majority of those establishments. He was willing to concede that he had not been an easy child, far too intelligent for his own good, and cursed with both a volatile temper and acrophobia that did nothing to facilitate his relations with other people. But the knowledge that his parents had essentially abandoned him rather than find ways of dealing successfully with their bright and troubled child hurt with the sort of dull ache of once broken bones, old and poorly healed injuries to the spirit and soul. It had been years since he had even wondered whether his parents yet lived. The place they should have occupied in his heart had been burned to ash and wasteland three and a half decades before. It was a scar that would never heal, never flush green with new growth. There was bitter comfort in knowing that at least he had never inflicted so deep a wound on anyone else. And yet, for the first time, he found himself wondering if he could do better than had been done to him. The possibility of fathering a child had been one he had guarded against with an almost rabidly zealous use of prophylactics, careful to part company with any woman who had begun to display the least sign of proprietary interest in him. Even now, he lived by that rule, the habit so ingrained by this time that it was essentially insurmountable. 

With an odd sense of analytical removal, he examined the strange rush of unexpected, unanticipated memories and emotions that flowed through him. This sort of introspection was something he had instinctively avoided, as a wild animal avoided the scent of cold iron, knowing that danger and pain were inextricably associated with it. The pain was there, as was the anger it generated, in all its' twisted bitterness, and he held out a hand to it, unable to stop himself, like a small child drawn to the lure of some danger he had been warned against. And like that small child, found himself burned, scorched by that old and deep pain with the same sense of disbelieving surprise that it could indeed still hurt so badly after so long.

And naturally, it was then that Tracy returned from wherever she had been, gray with weary grief, eyes dry, expression hollow. Roger rose, approaching her without thought, and equally without hesitation, she walked into his open arms, resting her forehead on his shoulder as her arms crept round him. "Is she gone?" he asked quietly, feeling her nod against his chest. He held her gently, for the first time in his experience of her, no hint of sexual arousal haunting him. It was unexpected, the sense of comfort it gave him to simply hold her, and the simple human contact salved his singed emotions. 

They stood this way for some indeterminate eternity until Tracy stepped away, reluctantly. She looked up to meet Roger's gray eyes, startled at the absolute vulnerability she saw there as she had not seen it now in months. And this time, he did not break that eye contact, letting her see straight into a wounded and troubled heart. Without thinking, she took his hand and led him back to the waiting area, sitting down and pulling him down onto the worn sofa next to her. "What are you thinking about?" she asked, knowing more than sympathy moved him now.

He laughed soundlessly, the pain not easing from his face. "Nothing that bears discussion," he told her.

"_Something's_ wrong," she pressed slightly, not releasing his hand, absently running a thumb over tendon and bone.

"Nothing that a second chance wouldn't fix," he sighed faintly, then smiled ironically at her. "I've been sitting here feeling sorry for myself, sweet thing. Ruminating on a wasted life, and the multitude of sins I've committed, for reasons that seemed absolutely righteous at the time, and in retrospect were every bit as much wrong. Wondering if I could have done better by the people I care about, wondering what things would be like now if they hadn't been the way they were when I was a kid. Nothing very important," he concluded, his bitterness not quite masked by his resignation.

She watched him, not sure what it was she was looking for, what she hoped to see. "Vinnie told me a little about you when we first got engaged, when spending as much time with you as with him looked like a distinct possibility." She saw him flinch involuntarily, felt him pull away from her physically and emotionally. She refused to relinquish her grip on his hand. "I'm sorry, Roger. Sorry you grew up the way you did. Sorry there was no one there to keep you from descending into whatever sort of hell it is you've lived your life in. If it would do any good, I'd curse your family for what they did to you. As warped as my childhood was, at least I had two parents who loved me." She regretted her words even as she spoke them, the pain in his eyes unbearable. She was forced to look away, her own eyes swimming. "Have you ever thought about having kids?" she asked after a moment, staring blankly into the room.

Roger laughed, the irony unmistakable in the sound. "I've spent most of my energy thinking about how to prevent that eventuality. Besides, who the hell would want me around on that permanent a basis? I am _not_ congenial company, Tracy. It didn't take _you_ long to figure _that_ out. And what the hell sort of role model would I be? I don't know the first thing about being a parent. I didn't have any around to learn from."

Tracy turned to look at him, her empathy for him graven in her features. "Roger, _no one_ knows anything about being a parent. Unfortunately, it's one of those jobs you kind of have to figure out as you go along. Some people are just better at it than others. It's too bad there isn't some sort of genetic blueprint that just kicks in, but there isn't. The best you can hope to do is to learn from your own parents mistakes and keep from repeating them, because, god knows, you'll make enough of your own."

"You and Vinnie are planning on having kids, aren't you?" Roger asked, reasonably sure he knew what the answer would be. 

"Eventually," Tracy acknowledged. "I was thinking that it would be smart to wait till we're done in New York to start worrying about it."

Roger nodded, agreeing with this in principle. "Makes sense. So I'll settle for being an uncle someday, " he added, seeing the flash of a watery smile on the face of the woman beside him. The feeling of closeness, of something intangible and indefinable by any of his past experience swept him with that smile. For the first time, the possibility of friendship with this woman occurred to him. He wondered when she had stolen that far past his guard, when she had become one of those people who found their way into his heart without his expectation or will, simply by virtue of what they were. He wondered if his physical longing for her would allow for something as prosaic as friendship. He withdrew his hand from hers, this time without reflexive pain, and this time, she let him go. "Vince called. He should be here in half an hour or so. I told him we'd meet him here." Tracy nodded in response to this, and to his unending amazement, tucked her feet up and leaned against his side. At a loss, he put his arm around her and rested his chin on the top of her head, offering his inexpert comfort. 

It was the way Vince found them when he arrived some fifteen minutes later.

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David Piccolini finished placing the last of his surveillance equipment in the Long Island house by late afternoon on Sunday, running a quick systems check from the sleek laptop Susan's money had bought for him. He was able to bring up both audio and video signals from each of the devices where they shared the FBI's connection to the fiber optics that snaked through the house. Reluctantly, he had elected not to install new devices in the master wing or the upstairs bedroom in the other wing that had none, fearing that signals from any unauthorized bugs would quickly come to the attention of the Feds when they did a routine monitoring of their equipment. Since the information from them was transmitted along hardwire, specially tuned receivers were unnecessary. That meant any signals that came down the cable to them would be instantly readable. Since the master wing and a single guest room had been omitted from their surveillance, he could not very well add it to his own without tipping his hand and revealing the presence of an unauthorized hanger-on.

The only thing that remained was to pick some unobtrusive spot and to splice into the cable at a point well off the property. At that stage, he figured on being able to set up a conventional transmitter relay that would allow him to monitor and record anything he chose from some conveniently remote location with the household and the FBI none the wiser. Well satisfied with the success of the weekend's labors, he checked his tracks to ensure that there would be no physical trace of his presence when the residents returned, and departed for the exquisite comforts of Susan Profitt's body.

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Aleksei Turpasian leaned back in the chair in which he sat, his table located at the back corner of the Rasputin night club in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, in which he had interests. The iced Schmirnoff at each table ensured the loudly boisterous crowd would make sufficient noise to cover any conversation he chose to hold in this, his most public domain. It was here that the residents of what had begun to resemble the ghettos of the major cities of Russia came to seek his intervention when they could not persuade the self-styled don of dons, Marat Balagula, to intercede for them in whatever trouble they had brought down upon themselves. "So. Tell me, Ivan. What happened?"

Berezov sat with his elbows resting on the lacquered tabletop, his Polish crystal tumbler held between fingertips. He eyed the colorless liquor , watching the sides of the glass frost over as water condensed out of the air. "Vasil is in Atlantic City, somewhere, held by Castaluccio's people, cooling his heels, and Capuzi's people, or maybe Castaluccio's, have the gun. The pair Torricelli brought in over Murakama Marine seem to have gotten themselves involved in things that are none of their affair yet again." He looked up, meeting the icy gaze of his boss. 

"What exactly do we know about them?" Turpasian asked.

"One of our contacts inside the Genoveses put together everything he had on them," Berezov said, putting down his glass and reaching down into a briefcase at his feet to remove a handful of papers. He lay them on the table and slid them across to Turpasian, who ignored them.

"Just tell me," Turpasian commanded.

Berezov retrieved the papers, glancing through them quickly to refresh his memory. "Vincent Terranova and Roger Lococco. Terranova is a made man. He is supposed to have murdered a Federal Agent for one of the old Atlantic City _cappos, _Sonny Steelgrave. He was never charged for the crime. Lococco is ex-CIA, former military. His career apparently ended in some sort of disgrace. They are equal partners in a company called _Pangea_, with interests in companies all over the country. They've made a good-sized fortune for themselves, mostly legally, from what anyone has been able to determine. They came to Capuzi's attention a little over six months ago, when some disgruntled former adversary of Terranova's appeared before a Federal Grand Jury and testified that Terranova was in fact a Federal agent. It seems that this man, Tony Grecco, was set up by Terranova to clear his way to Steelgrave."

"So he _is_ an agent?" Turpasian inquired, interested.

"No. Just an enterprising — and ruthless — man. He wasted no time in becoming indispensable to Steelgrave. When Steelgrave self-destructed on the day of his wedding, Terranova was arrested, along with most of the ranking dons on the East Coast, who were attending. Terranova skated. They couldn't make anything stick. He has long-term connections with Brooklyn, since his mother was married to Raphael Aiuppo. She died last December. He has dabbled in a large number of businesses, with the FBI three steps behind him all the way. He's managed to stay out of prison, but until Lococco reappeared, he didn't seem to be amounting to much as a business man."

"Tell me about Lococco," Turpasian requested.

"He seems to be both brains and brawn in that relationship. He worked for Mel Profitt, ten years ago -"

"Ah. I remember Mr. Profitt," Turpasian nodded, a slight smile flitting over worn features. "I sold him a fair amount of decommissioned ordinance while I was a Colonel in the KGB. It was a profitable' relationship. Did Lococco have something to do with Mel's death?"

Berezov shrugged. "There is some disagreement about this. But he met Terranova while he worked for Profitt. Together, they walked off with a chunk of the Profitt's assets and started their own business. Lococco seems to have been the one attending to it, while Terranova spent his time acting as decoy. Lococco came out of the woodwork when Grecco testified against Terranova, and helped keep his partner alive long enough to disprove the accusations, and to kill Grecco. Capuzi and Aiuppo persuaded them to stay, and to see what they could find out about some of the deals that have been going bad on them."

"And that has led them to us."

"No, Aleksei, not to us. There is nothing to connect us to any of it. They may have become aware of a connection to little Odessa, but as far as they know, Balagula is behind it. And they suspect that the Genoveses may be involved. Terranova and Lococco are responsible for the fall of Aiuppo's _cappos _from grace. They caught them in an attempt at insurrection and discredited them. One of them, Michael Brod, wound up dead in a firefight on the nineteenth floor of the Wessex Hotel. The other one, Brandon Castellano, has disappeared. He made his bones for Genoveses' Eboli. Thomas is his godfather'. The feeling seems to be that Brandon has declared a vendetta on Terranova and Lococco, a quest for vengeance Thomas doesn't support."

Turpasian grinned, an expression to send shivers down the spine of anyone on whom it fell. "A victory from the face of potential defeat," he observed to Berezov. "It would seem that these two will accelerate our timetable nicely."

Ivan nodded. "I think we should find this Castellano. Offer him our aid."

Turpasian nodded. "Just as long as he doesn't know it is _our_ aid he's accepting. It must seem that Balagula is behind it. It will drive a wedge between Eboli and Marat, if it appears as if he is helping Castellano when Eboli has refused to involve himself in one of the man's vendettas."

"I have persuaded our Genovese contact to extend an offer of assistance to Castellano as subtly as possible," Berezov informed him. "We should know shortly how interested he is in revenge."

"Excellent, Ivan. Excellent." Turpasian tossed off the remaining liquor in his glass and poured himself a second. That action signaled an end to business discussions for the evening, and his body language relaxed perceptibly.

"What should we do about Vasily?" Berezov asked, holding up a hand to warn off the statuesque blonde who had homed in on the table as soon as Turpasian had reached for the Schmirnoff.

"Free him. Bring him to me. What we do about him after that will depend on whether we can arrange things with Brandon Castellano." Turpasian said, waving the blonde over.

"Very well, Aleksei," Berezov agreed, shoving the papers back into his briefcase and standing. He placed a kiss on the blonde's cheek, patting her sleek fanny as he moved past her and out into the milling throngs.

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Hanley was released from the hospital late Sunday afternoon with the admonition to remain in bed for the next three days. The concussion had been severe enough that it was only when his employers had conveyed their concerns and had agreed to check on him regularly to ensure he had not slipped into unconsciousness again that his doctors agreed to let him leave. He was taken back to the Plaza, where Vince and Roger had elected to stay until the following day, and promptly put to bed.

The pounding headache that slammed around in his skull made him vaguely queasy, so it was no particular hardship to be relegated to off-duty status. The fact that Rapisardo had chewed him out for not managing to obtain anything that would ID the hitter during the tussle didn't help his headache, either. He wasn't quite sure what Leo had expected him to secure, or how, when his attention had been focused exclusively on keeping the gun from being aimed in any direction that had targets in it. Some of Rapisardo's annoyance, he knew, was worry over his agent's injuries. It was the first time Mitchell had seen anything resembling this sort of action. It was also the first time he had suffered an on-the-job injury, and he suspected that was the cause of Leon's misplaced irritability. He wondered what had happened to the shooter. It was clear that he had not been turned over to the police, or Leon would have had to find some other transgression to become peevish over. He slipped into a doze, still mulling this question over.

Several hours later, Falcone knocked softly on the door and stuck his head in. "Mitch, you awake? Gotta make sure your brains aren't leaking out your ears," he said as he stepped into the room.

"Just sleepy," Hanley responded with a yawn. "My head is killing me, but the gray matter seems to be staying put." He struggled into a sitting position, untangling his legs from the sheets and swinging them onto the floor. He got up unsteadily, ignoring Falcone's worried hovering as he made his way to the bathroom he shared with the neighboring room. "What happened after I checked out?" he asked as he went to the sink and splashed water on his face and the back of his neck.

"Rob Castaluccio's boys hauled the guy back to Atlantic City this morning after Vince talked to him. Talked _at_ him, I guess would be the more accurate way of putting it. He wasn't saying much. We didn't even get a name on him. Hopefully Roger's lab contact will be able to figure out who he is from the prints Vince had Castaluccio get." Lou handed Hanley a towel, then caught him by an elbow as Mitch overbalanced dizzily. "Maybe you'd better lie back down," he suggested.

"Maybe," Hanley agreed as he complied, wondering how he was going to find a way to communicate with Rapisardo to alert him that the Terranova organization had contacts inside NYPD. "So we don't know anything about the guy, huh? Do we know who he was gunning for?"

"Vinnie doesn't think the guy was after him, so right now, they're operating on the assumption that the target was don Capuzi," Lou said, flipping the sheets back over Hanley, who had begun to look a little gray around the edges. "What with all the hoopla this morning, he hasn't spent as much time worrying about it as he could have."

"Why? What happened this morning?" Mitch asked, eyes closed against the throbbing in his head.

"Mrs. T's mom passed away," Lou told him after a moment's pause. "Roger went with her to D.C. this morning at six. It was all over by the time Vince got there at noon. She's pretty broken up about it. That's why she hasn't been in to check on you — she and Vinnie are still in D.C., making arrangements and all." 

"Man. It never rains but it pours," Mitch observed. "If you talk to her, tell her I'm sorry," he added, not opening his eyes.

"She's supposed to call in half an hour for an update on you. She made Vinnie promise to bonus you for your little superhero stunt last night. Remember to say thank you'," Falcone grinned as Hanley's eyes opened wide in surprise. "I think you're the teacher's pet." He laughed as he saw the blush that colored Mitch's face at this observation, and left him alone with his thoughts as he departed, closing the door soundlessly behind him.

Roger drove the Mercedes out to Long Island himself, only Tracy and Vince as passengers. D'Arrigo and Falcone followed in the Lincoln, with Blanchard bringing up the rear, Hanley resting as comfortably as he could in the passenger seat of a new Ford Explorer. Lococco had arranged to have the SUV delivered to the Plaza some while before, designed to replace the second sedan, after a complete retrofitting with his favored bulletproof glass, having decided that some more utilitarian vehicle was need by the household. Blanchard and Hanley had been assigned the task of retrieving the dogs from the boarding facility in which they had spent the extended weekend on the way back. By the time the household arrived back at the Long Island mansion, it was mid-afternoon and Hanley was the worse for wear. He let the dogs out of the Explorer, watching them rocket off down the drive toward the Benz and Tracy Steelgrave Terranova, who ruffled ears and stroked the heavy coats of the shepherds in greeting.

Roger opened the front doors after deactivating the security system, and stood aside as the dogs burst through the door into the foyer with a rattle of claws on hardwood. He shook his head disapprovingly as they scrambled past him, then frowned as their body language went from playful to fully alert. Roger followed them, suddenly oblivious to the bustle as the rest of the household made their way inside. He watched the dogs cast about, restless, the hair bristling along their spines, ears pricked. They made their way into the goon wing' and investigated each room in turn, their anxiety reflected in their increasingly rapid progress through that wing, then the upstairs guest quarters. By the time they had made their way to the master wing across the connecting gallery over the solarium, Lococco's nerves were taut with anxiety of his own. All his experience told him that someone had been in the house. Someone the dogs neither knew nor approved of.

When he collided with Tracy in the wide hallway outside the master library, he nearly knocked her down. Wordlessly, he steadied her as he brushed past her, intent on following the dogs as they investigated the second, vacant, suite across from the master suite.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Tracy asked, piqued at the casual disregard he displayed as he kept the canines in sight. She followed on his heels, recognizing that he was deeply preoccupied with them. "Roger, what's wrong?" she asked, this time the irritation gone from her tone.

"Someone's been in here. Get Vince and the boys together in the library. Now." Roger was terse to the point of rudeness, ignoring the furrow in her forehead as she moved to comply.

Five minutes later, Lococco and the dogs joined the rest of them in the main library. "We've had a visitor. The dogs have followed the scent trail all over the house. Whoever it was, they went through here pretty thoroughly. Blanchard, you and D'Arrigo sweep the place from top to bottom. Every room, closet, bathroom and utility room. If there are bugs, I want them located. Leave them in place until you're done. Everyone, check your stuff for anything missing. I don't care how trivial it seems. I'm going to dust some of the obvious surfaces for prints. I doubt we'll find anything, they seem to know what they're doing, but I've been sloppy enough already." He gave out assignments, then turned to Falcone. "Get Hanley into bed then help Alex and Kevin."

Falcone nodded and led a grayish Hanley down the south hallway of the ground floor to his room, getting his cohort bedded down hurriedly before joining the search.

Roger paced the library tensely, obviously trying to keep his temper, without succeeding. "God dammit, I _knew_ we should have left the dogs on the property," he snarled, shooting a glare at Tracy, who glared right back.

"Don't start with me, Roger," she warned. "I'm not in the mood. Whoever it was, they might have shot the dogs to gain access, and we'd be in the same situation anyway."

"That's enough, both of you," Vince snapped, forestalling the squabble looming on the horizon. "If someone broke in here, we'll find out what they were up to." Voice dropping to a bare whisper, he continued. "Rog, call Frank. Find out if the bureau had anyone out here for maintenance this weekend." 

This brought Lococco up short as he eyed Terranova speculatively. "They'd have warned us," he asserted.

"Probably, but maybe some field agent who's had an eye on us decided to take advantage of an opportunity to check us out. We can't go blowing someone's cover because you're feeling paranoid, Roger. It's worth checking on before you start tearing up the house." Vince's voice was firm.

Lococco eyed him a moment longer before turning on his heel and heading for the front door, fishing for car keys as he went.

Vinnie sighed and turned to Tracy. "He's right. We should have left the dogs in place. That's their job. Roger's nose for trouble is every bit as good as theirs. I'll back his instincts over just about anyone else's, just about any time. We're targets, Trace. don't forget it. Not for a minute."

"You're telling me to shut up and stay the hell out of it?" she snapped. "Roger Lococco is borderline paranoid schizophrenic. You are going to have an uphill battle convincing me otherwise."

"It's kept him alive against _long_ odds, Trace. don't bet against him. I'd be willing to say he's right, that this house was broken into, for whatever reason. And I'm telling you right now, his job is to make sure he finds out what was taken, what was left behind and as much else about what happened as he can. Don't get in his way, and don't pick a fight with him about it. Because I'll back him." Vinnie's voice brooked no contradiction.

Tracy stared at her husband as though she had never seen him before. This was the first time in her experience he had taken a stance from which he refused to be swayed. That it opposed hers was a shock, and the irrational jealousy that Lococco triggered in her raged through her with intensity she had not experienced in months. "You do that. I'll visit both of you in the psych ward," she retorted as she swept from the room in fury.

Vince watched her go, gritting his teeth with the strain of keeping his own temper. All the efforts he had persuaded Lococco to make toward making peace with Tracy in the last months had been undone in minutes. Talking to her at the moment would accomplish nothing beyond making matters worse, he knew, and began pacing the path Lococco had abandoned minutes before. When he had arrived at the hospice in which Tracy's mother had died to find Tracy in Roger's arms, no matter how platonic, he had known a single moment of absolute jealousy, one that had faded mercifully quickly in the face of his overwhelming relief that they were not fighting. He had dared hope that some sort of affection based on respect and understanding might have been nascent in their embrace. But it seemed his was not the only jealousy to rear its' head. He only prayed that Tracy's inherent common sense and logic would bring her around when her temper cooled.

Roger spent the two weeks leading up to the summit with the New York investors' searching out every iota of information he could come up with regarding both the attempt on Capuzi and the break-in at Long Island. There was very little to go on aside from his instincts as far as the break-in was concerned. There had been no fingerprints, no surveillance devices of any kind, and no further trace of the intruder or their agenda. Only the dogs' behavior convinced him that he had not descended into some sort of paranoid episode. It left him edgy and anxious, and the tensions between himself and Tracy escalated into outright warfare. Vince was at great pains to keep them apart, yet they were both drawn and repulsed by each other like magnets whose poles had aligned, everything around them caught in the energy fields that arced between them. Only knowing that Vince trusted his assessment of the threat posed by the break-in made it bearable. He had decamped to the suite at the Plaza when it was not in use midweek by Tracy, electing to stay well clear of her until things settled down.

His luck with the Capuzi incident was nominally better. Though Castaluccio had been unable to make headway with the recalcitrant hitman, McPike and the OCB had had better luck. The fingerprints identified the man through Interpol records as one Vasilév Trofimov, a notorious thug in one of the Moscow-based Russian Mafiya organizations. He had been deported in Ninety-five, winding up in Israel where he had promptly gotten involved in the sort of pickpocketing and petty thievery that the Israeli officials frown on. He had left for the shores of America one step ahead of the police, and had associated himself with a variety of known Russian gangsters, performing various services' for them. His most recently known alliance was with Marat Balagula, the self-proclaimed emperor' of Little Russia, the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn. Roger had passed this on to Castaluccio in the hopes that confronting the hitman with what they knew would shake something more out of him, only to be informed by Rob himself that three of his best lieutenants had been killed when Trofimov had been liberated' from his captivity. This unwelcome piece of news set off alarms all over Roger's hyperactive nervous system, leaving him with a freshly stoked bout of insomnia.

By the time the meeting began, almost two weeks to the day from Capuzi's party, he was frayed and edgy with lack of sleep and an excess of worry. The meeting was held in the conference room at _Pangea's_ offices, Roger not especially caring what the office-full of employees thought about the distinctly odd gathering. With the distribution of refreshments, the meeting commenced, Cyrus Weinstien of Detroit getting the ball rolling with a sharp criticism of the evident lack of progress.

"Chero nearly gets blown away and you morons let the bastard get away?" Weinstien snarled without preliminaries.

"Actually, it was _my_ morons that let him get away," Rob Castaluccio put in coldly from across the etched glass and ebony conference table. "They weren't quite up to toughing out a couple of thirty-eight caliber bullets to the backs of their heads." He glared at Weinstien with subtle menace. "Let's hear what Vince and Roger have to tell us, before we start jumping to any conclusions, huh, Cy?"

Vince nodded his thanks to Castaluccio, and met eyes all around the table. "Okay. Cyrus is right. What we've been able to nail down is sketchy. But it is _very_ suggestive of something big — really big — going on. Some of you know that Paul called Roger and me in to deal with a situation on his docks at Murakama Marine at the beginning of July. A shipment of plastic guns had been smuggled in from Asia, vacuum-packed in peanut cans, and one of his men discovered it. Paul sent his guys home, figuring that the last thing he needed was to have a shipyard full of stevedores shot up if things went south. That's when Rog and I got into the act. Seems the shipper left their cargo tub tied up at his docks, and the crew disappeared within hours. That left him with his operation tied up, a shipment of illegal arms cluttering up his warehouse, and the whole thing reeking like a dead body in a heat wave. So Paul handed off the company to us, we called in a marker with a friend of Roger's in the DOJ, and the ATF and the CIA swarmed all over it. We came out looking like good Samaritans and the guns stopped being a problem. Until one of them turned up as the weapon in the move on don Capuzi two weeks ago."

This small bombshell was unknown to all save Capuzi and Castaluccio, and the stir it caused was considerable. Every possible permutation of its' import and significance flickered through the brains of the assembled dons.

"Yeah. That was our reaction when Roger's Police Lab contact came back to us with that little piece of information. She sent it on to the ATF, who shared it with the CIA. There's quite a little story behind those guns. It seems they were manufactured in Azerbaijan, destined for Chechnya and the rebels there. Only, the Chechen Mafiya hijacked them and apparently sold them to an Odessa-based group of gangsters. What happens after that is a little vague, but they wind up back down near the Turkish border loaded onto a ship that turns out to have connections to one of Paul's off-shore holding companies. The Persephone sails under Panamanian registry, her home port is Athens. And she's listed on the asset sheets of one of Paul's shell companies, called Lipney Transport. Someone has gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to construct a trail that leads from the Russian mob to Paul. Only, Paul hasn't done business with them."

"Or so he says," Weinstien interjected darkly.

Torricelli eyed the Detroit don sourly. "You take me for a total idiot? I'm gonna buy a shipment of plastic cap guns, bring em over on my own ship, leave them lying around the docks — and then let the _Feds_ take em off my hands? What the hell sorta business you think I run?"

Maggioncalda grinned at this. "I'll give you that one, Paul," he said, amused. "No percentage in letting the government walk off with merchandise you could turn a clean profit on. So how come you handed it over? The shipment, I mean?"

"Vince and Roger agreed that it was starting to look like a frame, and that my best bet at staying outta court on this was to dump the problem on the government. I handed off Murakama to the boys to break the links to me someone was trying so hard to set up," Torricelli said, leaning back in his chair. He glanced around the table, eyeing his fellow dons, speculation clear on his face. "I've been straight with you guys, all the way down the line. I find out this is coming from someone at this table? There's gonna be a war. Just so we're all on the same page, here, Cy." He focused his attention on Weinstien grimly. "From where I'm sitting, you're the one with the most likely interest in a deal with the Russians. You're the only Jew here. And you've been nursing a gripe cause you've always wanted more of a chunk'a New York than the Genoveses were willing to let you hack off. So you make yourself a deal with Marat, let him stir up trouble, then waltz in and clean up when the rest of us have killed each other off."

There was a restless stirring as the gathered dons acknowledged some measure of possibility in these speculations.

"The only problem I see with that theory, Cy, is that you're just not bright enough to have put this all together," Paul added. "And neither is Balagula." He ignored the quiet snickers around the table, daring Weinstien to disagree.

"Fuck you, too, Paul," Weinstien snapped, clearly furious at the aspersions that had been cast first on his honor, then on his intelligence. "_I'm_ not the one who humped cargo for ten years before he wised up, you little prick."

Torricelli grinned nastily. "Beats some of the bags _you've_ humped, Cy."

Weinstien's flush darkened at this additional insult. "Open your mouth one more time, water rat, and you'll _get_ your war."

"Alright, that's enough." Zanetti intervened irritably. "We've got business to discuss!" He glared at the two combatants before turning his attention back to Vince, who sat relaxed at the head of the table, Roger at his right. "What about the hit on Chero?"

"Another mystery," Vince said. "Roger's and my gut instinct says that it's connected to all this, but so far it's more feeling than fact. It's just too many damned coincidences, for one thing. Don Castaluccio's boys are the ones who first mentioned the Russian connection. All of you know about the little run-in I had last winter with Aiuppo's former cappos, and that Castellano is on the loose somewhere in the city? Well, it looks like he's under Genovese protection. Rumor has Brandon ready to come gunning for me, my crew, Rudy and Chero in a shot at payback. So who comes along to Chero's party as an uninvited guest? A _prima facci _with a name right outta Tolstoy. The Genoveses have a treaty with Balagula. So the question is, did they bring in this guy to help out Brandon, did Brandon go over his godfather's head and make an arrangement with the Russians, or did someone go to a lot of trouble to make it seem that way?" Terranova gazed around the room, gauging the level of concern that registered on each face. "Any option you pick means trouble. And until we know more, anything we do stands a good chance of bringing down the war we're trying to avoid." He leaned back in his chair, listening to the murmur of discussion around the table as this was digested. He let it continue for several minutes before he shifted purposefully, gathering attention to himself once again.

"The six months Rog and I signed on for is up. We've made some progress in figuring out what's going on, but we're a _long_ way from having the whole picture. What happens next is up to you. I'll be blunt. Rog and I have diddley to gain by staying in New York. We've got Castellano out there somewhere looking to plug us, there's trouble with the Russians brewing, and we've got our own interests to look after. So you'd better be pretty damn sure you want us onboard with this before you renew our contract'. Cause you may not like what we find out."

"We _already_ don't like what you've found out," Zanetti pointed out. "But we know better than to confuse the messengers with the message." He looked around the table. "I vote for asking Vincenzo and Roger to stay with it. The price is nothing, next to what we stand to loose if all hell breaks loose."

This time, the nods were emphatic — and unanimous. Vince sighed, having entertained fantasies of a quiet retirement to the suburbs with his new wife. He felt Roger's awareness of his mixed feelings on the subject, and shot his partner a wry smile. Lococco returned it, eyes crinkling slightly with irony. 

"One last thing," Vince said as the dons began making motions to depart. "What happened to Paul probably wasn't unique. If you get wind of a setup, let Roger and me know about it, _fast_. We moved on Murakama fast enough to head off a major problem for Paul, but only cause he didn't dink around, trying to handle it himself."

There was a general murmur of agreement from the gathered Mafiosi as they rose from the table and filed out of the conference room. Several of them lingered, Maggioncalda, Torricelli and Castaluccio among them.

"Vincenzo," Maggioncalda began quietly as the room cleared. "We wanted to discuss another matter of business with you," he said.

Vince shut the doors of the conference room again before turning his attention back to the three dons. "What is it we can do for you?" he asked.

Mitchell, the last of the bruises on his face faded to a bilious combination of yellow and violet, swam slowly, with less than his usual energy. He still suffered from the headaches associated with his concussion, and strenuous activity tended to bring them on. He had taken to making a regular habit of his midnight swims when he accompanied either the Terranovas or Lococco to the Plaza Hotel, taking advantage of the usually empty gym to check in with his Lifeguard. Simon was less than thrilled by the hour, but had stopped complaining about it after Hanley's return to duty, post injury.

That night, Rapisardo was due for a face-to-face meeting for a first hand account of the summit meeting earlier in the afternoon. Hanley swam steadily, not exerting himself beyond what his still aching ribs would allow comfortably as he waited for his field supervisor to appear. A splash from the far end of the pool brought him up short as he looked back over his shoulder. A swimmer had joined him, knifing through the water with machine-like precision. As the newcomer approached, Mitch hung in the water, relaxing muscles that had tensed abruptly with the unexpected company. 

As Rapisardo arrived at Mitchell's end of the pool and did a perfect flip using the end of the pool to push off against, Hanley grinned. Leon rose out of the water, ebony skin gleaming under the fluorescent lights as he turned and waded back the five feet that separated him from Hanley. 

"You slumming?" Mitch asked, still grinning.

"I'm not spending half a week's salary on dry cleaning any more suits," Rapisardo retorted, then grinned. "Besides, if anyone wanders in on one of our meetings, some nigger in a suit in the sauna with a naked white guy is gonna raise a few eyebrows."

Mitchell laughed. "Good point," he said, still laughing, as he hoisted himself out of the water and heard Leo do the same behind him. They made their way to the sauna, snatching towels on their way inside.

"So how'd it go?" Leon asked as they sat down on the slatted wooden benches across the small room from one another. 

Hanley related the details of the meeting as he'd been told them at the briefing Lococco and Terranova had held for their employees earlier in the evening.

Rapisardo nodded. "I already heard the tapes from the taps we have in place in _Pangea's_ offices. I'll download the sound files to you if you want the details. Any other info on the business proposal the terrible trio made to Terranova?"

"Not so far. I'm not sure they're looking to take on any more than they've already got on their plates. For a pair of high-powered connected guys, they're not very ambitious," Mitch observed.

"Not much point when they're already worth billions — legally. Why ask for trouble?" Rapisardo pointed out. "And what Castaluccio has in mind is plenty of that."

"Ah, but man, would it be sweet to take away a chunk of the Russians' bootleg gasoline business — and then bust it open."

"The only problem with that is that Terranova and Lococco aren't law enforcement. They're business men, a little shady, but no more so than any other corporate types."

"So far, that's all we've seen. But I'd swear there's more going on than I've gotten a look at yet," was Hanley's assertion.

"Maybe so," Leon agreed peacefully. "But don't go stirring up trouble, kid. If Terranova gets involved, we'll close it down. But until then, let it alone. Consider that an order."

Hanley scowled mutinously at this, but knew better than to pursue it any farther. They conversed briefly, then Rapisardo took his leave and Hanley returned upstairs to the suite. He went to bed, ignoring the brooding Lococco in the small study. The man never seemed to sleep, and Mitchell wondered how he managed.

Tracy clenched her teeth against the yawn that threatened to dislocate her jaw, and nodded politely at Marvin Ketchall as he smiled at her and wrapped up his conclusion. She sat through the questions from the partners and staff members that were working on the case, gathering her notes into her briefcase as the last of them was answered, then got to her feet and departed on the heels of the rest of the rooms' occupants. She headed for her office, a surprisingly nice space along the eastern side of the building with a view — provided you craned your neck — of the New York harbor and Staten Island between the sides of neighboring buildings. The yawn she had been suppressing broke through and she let her weariness slope her shoulders as she settled at her desk. Her sleep patterns had been erratic for weeks now, ever since Capuzi's party. And the tensions between herself and Lococco had not helped. She regretted her attack of temper, but every time she had attempted to apologize, Roger had said or done something that provoked her yet again. Vince had given up mediating between them, instead, doing his best to keep them apart. She knew the emotional atmosphere was a source of considerable stress for him, but neither she nor Roger seemed able to help themselves. 

Some part of her was almost glad of the of insomnia, since her dreams were haunted regularly by Roger's presence in them, a fact that made her acutely anxious. Though they were not always erotic, they invariably included a physical sense of him that she could only liken to that first, growing awareness of male interest in puberty. Her body held a physical memory of the feel of him, his warmth in her embrace, the wiry strength and taut energy. It was unnerving to realize that on a deeply biological level, she wanted a man other than her husband. Vinnie's comparison of Roger and himself to two halves of the same whole, flip sides of a coin, struck her as remarkably astute, now, months later. She had had ample opportunity to witness the almost psychic communication between them, a phenomenon that illustrated graphically the parallel modes of thought they shared. 

She was no closer to a solution to the problem than she had been on her wedding day. The only thing that had changed was her awareness of the depth and intensity of it. Even were she to sleep with Lococco, she knew instinctively it would not end there — for either of them. The idea of sharing her bed on an ongoing basis with both a husband and a lover shook her view of herself, even as she was forced to acknowledge the growing — and growingly urgent — appeal of this possibility. 

Her phone rang and she reached for the receiver. "Tracy Steelgrave," she answered.

Roger and Mitchell, in the big Mercedes, were running later than they had anticipated. There would not be time for Hanley to drop Roger at the hotel before his scheduled pick-up of Tracy. The meeting Lococco had had with Castaluccio and Capuzi had dragged on as the two mobsters had gone around on what to do about the Russian hitman who'd gotten away. There was a bounty on him, which Roger was privately convinced would be every bit as ineffective as the one on Castellano was proving to be. He had finally taken his leave, barely able to restrain his impatience, and had nursed his foul mood in silence as Mitch had driven them back to Manhattan, fighting the afternoon rush hour traffic all the way. 

His mood had been unrelievedly black for days, fouling the air around him with the miasma of his angry frustration. Everyone in the household had taken to avoiding him, not knowing what would set him off, and he had withdrawn to the isolation of his room when not absolutely required to be present. And Tracy he had avoided like the plague, refusing all of her overtures, so furious he could barely function. The tranquility he sought in meditation escaped him completely, adding yet another level of frustration to a situation already near its' maximum.

Hanley pulled the big sedan into the garage of the building that housed Ketchall's firm, and pulled to a stop near the bank of elevators on the first level, where he usually met Tracy. Putting the car in neutral, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Tracy's office, as Lococco got out of the car and paced restlessly alongside it, obviously trying to work off his mood.

"We're here," Mitch told Tracy when she answered on the second ring. "Sorry we're late. We got stuck in traffic on the bridge."

Tracy gathered her things together and shut down the PC on her desk, wishing she had thought to ask Mitchell who we' was, and suspecting she knew. It was an uncomfortable feeling to dread seeing Lococco, particularly since he was likely to be irritable about having to tag along to pick her up. She tried to ignore the knots in her stomach as she boarded the elevators and punched the button for the garage. 

She stepped out of the elevator on the first level of the garage, looking around for the Mercedes, then spotted it thirty five feet away where Mitch had pulled it over out of the way of other exiting motorists. She walked toward it, trying to ignore the grim set of Roger's features as he waited by the open rear driver's side door. The crack of a rifle report, when it came, slammed through the cavernous concrete space with a noise like cannon fire. The chips of concrete that were kicked up by the slug as it hit the floor six inches to the left of her right foot stung where they impacted her calf. Blind instinct sent her sprinting toward the car as Lococco, gun drawn, scanned the garage rapidly, moving to meet her. 

Roger caught her by the arm, inserting himself between her and the direction of the shot as a second one echoed noisily through the garage, feeling the searing heat of it's passage along his waist. "Get back in the car," he shouted at Hanley, who was scrambling out of the driver's seat, his own pistol in hand. He thrust Tracy into the car, twisting his upper body to both shield her and to allow him to search the immediate vicinity for the shooter. The third shot caught him in the back under the ribs, just below the right kidney. He was slammed chest-first into the Benz by the impact, grunting with the pain as he essentially fell into the car, sprawling into Tracy's lap even as he fought his way to an upright position. A fourth shot rang out as he succeeded, wrenching the door closed and falling against it, trying to quiet his ragged breathing as Mitchell pulled away with the shriek of rubber on cement. He forced himself to straighten and holstered his weapon. "Get us the hell out of here!" he commanded, turning his head to watch the site of the ambush recede behind them as they roared up the ramps.

Teeth gritted, he pulled his cell phone out of a pocket and dialed Vinnie's number. "Vinnie," he snapped into the little phone, "someone just took a couple of potshots at us while we were retrieving your wife. Get someone down here to comb the place. I wanna know who was doing the shooting." He listened to the response from Terranova, ignoring the near panic in the man's voice. "Just do it, Vince. Now. We're on our way back to the hotel." He hung up, stuffing the phone back in his coat pocket and leaning slowly back against the upholstery. 

The Mercedes hit the street at speed, Hanley glancing back at his passengers over his shoulder as he drove. "You alright? Roger? Mrs. T? Either of you hit?"

Roger stiffened his spine, ignoring the pain like red hot knives that sliced through his back as he turned to Tracy, who was huddled, white-faced, in the opposite corner of the back seat. "Trace. Are you hit?" he asked insistently. It was then that he saw the blood that trickled down her leg along the shin. "Shit," he hissed, his own wounds forgotten as he bent to take her ankle into his hand, lifting her leg into his lap to examine the injury. The cut was minor, and he exhaled. "She's alright, Mitch. Get us to the hotel." He lifted her leg back off his lap, setting her foot on the floor, and leaned back into the seat again.

He could feel the sticky heat of the blood that slicked his back and side, adhering his shirt to his body. He was glad there was no exit wound. He had resorted to his usual wardrobe of basic black, and knew the blood wouldn't show until it started to spread through the back of his suit coat. He prayed that Hanley could get them to the Plaza before then. The wound, by the feel of it, was similar to the one he'd taken in Vietnam in the action that had earned him both his Purple Heart and the Medal of Honor that currently resided in the bottom drawer of his desk in California amongst the other flotsam of his life. If so, he had a small window of time before the blood loss progressed to a point where he would be unable to function. He had that long to ensure that he got Tracy Steelgrave-Terranova to safety.

Hanley pulled into the garage of the Plaza and steered the big car into its' reserved parking space on the bottom level, near the bank of elevators. He was out of the car, circling the hood quickly to reach the rear passenger-side door against which a shell-shocked Tracy still huddled. He helped her out as Lococco got out on his side of the car. He led her to the elevators, Roger bringing up the rear, his gun back in his hand. They got into the private elevator and Hanley punched the button for their floor. With only the faintest whir of machinery, they sped upward, Hanley's arm at Tracy's back supporting her as Lococco leaned against the back of the elevator.

Roger knew that he was bleeding more freely than he would have thought. Pain screamed along his nerves like white-hot needles, making him sweat with the intensity of it. The roaring in his ears and his darkening vision told him he had minutes at best before he would lose consciousness. When the elevator doors opened into their suite, he waited until Hanley had Tracy halfway across the foyer before he pushed himself away from the elevator wall and walked carefully out into the suite. Distantly, he could hear Tracy calling for Vince, and he stumbled, then stumbled again, his gun dropping from nerveless fingers to clatter on the marble. This time, the floor rushed up to meet him as he toppled soundlessly. The last thing he heard before the blackness of absolute unconsciousness rolled over him was the sound of running feet hitting the parquet of the foyer hall with the sharp echo of impact on stone.

Vince came running as he heard Tracy call out for him, his heart slamming into his chest like a jackhammer. He reached the foyer in time to see Lococco collapse onto the stone floor. "Jesus Christ! Roger!" he exclaimed as he sprinted past Hanley and his wife. 

Hanley turned to look back toward where Lococco should have been, astonished to see him sprawled in a twisted heap on the floor. "Geezus," he swore, realizing instantly that the man had been shot. He let Tracy shake him off as Vince dropped to his knees beside his partner.

"Mitchell, help me get him to the livingroom," Vince snapped, gathering Roger's body into his arms and staggering to his feet. He let Mitch help him with the hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight, and together, they lay Roger gently on the couch, face down, as it had become immediately obvious that he'd been hit in the back. 

Tracy, still shocky herself, attempted to pull herself together and made for the telephone and dialed 911, explaining briefly the nature of the emergency and describing the injuries as she watched Vince yank Roger's coat and shirt up his back to expose the wounds there. Once assured that help was on the way, she hung up and returned unsteadily to the sofa, unsure what she could do to help.

Vince looked up at her from where he knelt beside the couch, fear dilating the blue eyes. "Tracy, babe, are you okay?" He watched her swallow, then nod firmly. "Can you bring us some clean towels?" She nodded again and headed rapidly for the nearest of the four bathrooms in the suite.

She returned seconds later with an armful and without prompting, folded one of them and lay it over the wounds, pressing firmly against it to staunch the flow of blood. She watched Vince search for a pulse, first at Roger's wrist, then at the angle of his jaw with a sense of complete unreality, as though she had somehow found herself in the middle of a nightmare from which she could not wake. Things unfolded around her with a surreal quality that reminded her of the one time she had tried LSD. Even the nausea that settled like lead in the pit of her stomach had a foggy, distant air that left her able to ignore it as though it were happening to someone else. The scene in the garage of Ketchall's offices replayed itself in her dazed mind like a stylized music video, every action, motion, sound, flashing strobe-like in her recollection. The superficial confusion of the events resolved itself into details that rose from her trained memory like a flock of birds. From her position inside the car, she had caught a glimpse of the man wielding the rifle. It had been Brandon Castellano. And he had been aiming at _her_. Only the fact that the Benz boasted bulletproof glass and heavy armor had prevented him from succeeding. She realized that the bullet lodged in Lococco's back had to have ricocheted off the window of the open door to have hit him as it had, and leave no exit wound. She prayed that enough of the velocity had been bleed off that the shot would not prove fatal. She moved away from her position beside Roger's unmoving body as Hanley took over the application of pressure to the wounds, trying not to feel superfluous.

"Where _is_ everyone?" she asked Vince, whose attention was focused on Lococco.

He looked up at her. "I sent Kevin and Alex out to sweep the garage in Ketchall's building to see what they could find. Lou's heading for Capuzi's to see what he can find out about this -" he waved a hand in frustrated eloquence, indicating his partner. "Did you see anything?"

"It was Castellano," she told him quietly. "I didn't see anyone else. And he was gunning for _me_." She watched this piece of news drive all color from his face. The rage that blazed in his cerulean eyes was something beyond anything she had seen there previously, and she realized with a visceral chill just how dangerous a man she had married. He rose to his feet, every muscle in his tall, stocky body stiff with outrage, and brushed past her on the way to the phone.

Vince picked up the receiver and dialed Capuzi's private number. When it was answered, he began without any preamble. "Arrange a meeting with Eboli. I don't care how you do it. Arrange it, or we're going to start icing Genovese soldiers until he turns Castellano over to me." He listened to the response impatiently, interjecting before Capuzi had finished. "Brandon went after my _wife_, Chero. My partner is bleeding all over my livingroom with a couple of bullets in his back that he took to protect her. They may've spilled first blood, but I swear to you, it won't be the last. Now either you connect me up with Eboli or I start wrecking his boys until he takes me seriously." With this, he hung up, noisily, and returned to her, taking her into his arms and holding her tightly, seeking comfort as much as offering it.

The elevator chimed and Hanley went to meet the EMTs who had arrived with it, Tracy stepping in to replace him in putting pressure on the wound. He waved them toward the livingroom, noticing the smear of blood that discolored the polished brass of the back of the elevator. He locked off the car and followed the medical team into the livingroom, watching as they moved purposefully around the injured man. 

Blood pressure, pulse and respiration were rapidly noted and communicated between them, the younger of the two, an Hispanic woman in her late twenties clearly the one in charge. "The pulse is really thready," she observed to her partner. "And he's shocky. There must be some heavy internal bleeding," she added, the clamminess of Roger's extremities making this a safe bet. "Get him on Ringers," she directed her partner, a black man in his thirties, then looked up at her audience. "What happened? He wasn't shot here, was he?"

Hanley shook his head. Uh-uh," he agreed. "We were meeting Mrs. Terranova at her work when we were bushwhacked. I didn't even know Mr. Lococco'd been hit till he collapsed in the hall -" he gestured at the pooled blood on the parquet floor that was beginning to clot and dry.

"You're going to have to file a police report," she pointed out, satisfied as they nodded. She turned her attention back to the patient, taping a heavy gauze pad over the deeper of the two wounds, then she rolled the gurney alongside the couch, setting the breaks. Together, she and her partner transferred the inert body from the furniture to the stretcher and strapped him in place, hanging the I.V. bag on its' hook. "Who's riding with us?" she asked, glancing at the three worried bystanders.

Vince nodded, turning to Hanley. "Follow us," he directed the younger man brusquely.

"I'm coming with you," Tracy told Mitchell as he caught up his jacket.

Hanley shot a look at Terranova, who nodded once, then turned his attention back to Tracy. "Get your coat. It's gonna be dark soon," he suggested.

The EMTs rolled the gurney toward the elevator as Tracy retrieved her calf-length wool coat from the hall closet and followed her husband and driver onto the elevator.

Hanley unlocked it and pressed the button for the lobby, having ascertained that the ambulance was parked illegally in front of the hotel. The ride down was absolutely silent.

Vince paced the length of the row of chairs in the waiting area, neither seeing nor caring where he stepped. The effort to walk off the dread that gripped him was futile. Every time they had managed to collar someone to find out how Roger was, news was nonexistent. Lococco had been taken into surgery almost immediately upon his arrival, the seriousness of his injury requiring rapid intervention. The initial reports from the admitting physician had been guardedly optimistic, but that initial relief had been quickly replaced by escalating worry as the surgery dragged on with no word on Roger's condition. It was now nearly two a.m., and Lococco had been in the operating room for over seven hours. The first three had passed rapidly as the police had arrived and taken their statements. Vince had even managed to find a private moment to make a call to the Lifeguard, informing him of what had happened. Time since then had moved at a snail's pace, and even the call from Blanchard that they had been over the scene of the shooting with fine tooth combs and failed to find any physical evidence, such as shell casings, had done nothing more than amp up their already frayed nerves.

Tracy, using her coat as a blanket, had curled up on the couch, her head in Mitch's lap as she dozed. Hanley flipped through magazines, unable to do more than pay cursory attention to their contents, Vinnie's restless anxiety keeping him on edge. He brooded gloomily on the ambush he and Lococco had walked blindly into. Complacency had put Tracy Steelgrave-Terranova at risk, and it might yet kill Roger. They had been sloppy, despite knowing that their safety was illusory without constant vigilance. He was angry with himself, and plagued by irrational guilt for what had happened. 

At ten to three, when a surgeon in sweat-stained greens materialized, their apprehension was thick enough in the air to cut with a knife. The first words out of the woman's mouth dispelled it like sunlight in a dark room. "He's alive." Her next words brought it flowing back over them with the iciness of a sudden mist. "We don't know if he'll stay that way." The pale shock on the faces in front of her caused her to relent. "We nearly lost him twice," she elaborated. "There's extensive damage to his intestines, and damage to his spleen as well as the ureter that connects his kidney to his bladder. If we can keep infection from setting in, his odds are better than even, but infection is just about guaranteed when you're dealing with perforated intestines. I'm sorry it isn't any better news. We'll have a clearer idea how he's doing when he comes out of recovery. I'll send someone to let you know when he's conscious again." With this, she departed, weariness in every muscle. The three of them stared at one another with unassuaged worry.

Lococco stirred, trying to relieve the cramped stiffness of his body, and regretted it instantly as agony shot through nerves and muscle like high voltage electricity. The nearly silent exhalation was the only sound he made, but it brought the touch of a hand on his, slender fingers threading between his own. He forced his eyes open, his vision blurred. Even that effort proved too great, the weight of his eyelids more than he could manage, and he let them close again. The voice, soft enough that he had difficulty hearing it clearly, spoke his name, tentatively.

"Roger?" Tracy had heard the breathy moan and had taken his hand, gently. It had been nearly seven a.m. before she had been allowed in to see Lococco, who still hovered on the borders of consciousness. She had sent Vince and Mitch home when Blanchard and Falcone had arrived to spell them at five in the morning, telling the reluctant Vinnie that she would call him when Roger woke. The frozen numbness around her heart had grown deeper with every hour that had passed this interminable night. The man in the hospital bed beside her had sustained two gunshot wounds in order to protect her. She knew her guilt was irrational, that Lococco would be the first one to tell her so, were he able, but it didn't change the sense of horrified responsibility that clenched around her throat, vice-like, making swallowing nearly impossible. Unconsciously, she stroked the surprisingly fine-boned hand she held, calling his name again, softly. "Roger, wake up," she entreated.

Lococco recognized the voice, at some basic level astonished that hers was the first one he heard. The warm hand in his, the delicate caress of fingers over his own, were hers as well. He focused his entire will on returning the gentle pressure, and knew he had succeeded when his name was spoken once again, this time, with profound relief. With the skill of long practice, he slowly shut out awareness of the pain that layered his body like a second skin, letting the softness of the touch on his hand center his universe. Even in his drugged state, he found the eloquence of that contact profound, a poetry of senses that had nothing to do with the usual ones. His desire for the woman beside him was instinctive, uncontrollable, and completely outside the realm of logic. And he was aware of an amused sense of irony that his body's response to hers was unimpeded by the pain that raged through him. He didn't know whether or not to hope she missed that nuance.

Tracy closed her eyes briefly in thanksgiving as she felt Lococco's hand tighten around hers. With her free hand, she stroked a stray tendril of wiry hair off his forehead. She felt a bit as though she were petting a sleeping tiger, a liberty she would never have entertained taking had he been fully conscious. The faint flicker of his smile told her that he was aware of her touch and she felt herself blush, glad that his eyes were not open. That he could discomfit her so easily forced her awareness of the intensity of her attraction to him. That he could manage a state of physical arousal given his condition both astonished her and left her aroused in her turn. She wanted this man, and was beginning to fear that she needed him, every bit as much as she needed Vince. Vinnie's expectation that she would take Lococco as her lover was unspoken, but unshakable. How he had managed to arrive at this eluded her, though by now, she was inclined to credit him with prescience. But the very idea of sleeping with another man went counter to her upbringing as well as her view of herself and her sexuality. She was poised on a knife edge between her past and her future, with no idea of the outcome of the unprecedented feelings she held for these two men. She did not know whether what she had and treasured with her husband would survive the addition of a lover. All she knew was that she couldn't bear the idea of losing Vince simply to gain Roger. The selfishness of wanting both men disturbed her sense of herself and the conscious equitability she had spent her adult life cultivating. It was akin to the mindless greed she instinctively associated with her father, and his endless search for more. More power, more wealth, more respect. Logic told her this was no different, however much her heart might disagree

Lococco, his extrasensory perception of Tracy unaffected by his physical debility, was aware of the turmoil in her, something of its' energy flowing between them with her touch. He could not have said how he knew it, but the certainty of her desire for him made him ache with something unrelated to pain, a mingling of simple wanting and the knowledge that acting on that need would force him to betray the trust of a man he had come to love. He was wary enough of human nature to wonder at Vinnie's resignation to the connection between Tracy and himself, not understanding the near-total lack of jealousy, not trusting that it wasn't there, somewhere, awaiting the potential trigger of his wife's adulterous union with another man. 

Exhaustion and pain made introspection even more burdensome than it was ordinarily, and he felt sleep beckon him away from the plentiful discomforts of his waking world. He let it come, a cloak to shield him against things he hadn't the strength to withstand otherwise.

Tracy felt the subtle loosening of his fingers in her own, an instants' panic ebbing as the steady rise and fall of his chest confirmed that he slept. She indulged herself, combing fingers through Roger's thick hair, intrigued at its' difference in texture from Vinnie's, springy and wavy where Vince's was like heavy silk and largely straight. Emboldened by his lack of response to this familiarity, she caressed his face, feeling the night's growth of beard on cheek and chin, but not really able to see it, the fairness of the hair surprising. She traced the lines on his forehead and those around his eyes, knowing that the pain of years had set them in place, wondering if there was anything that could ease them. Having dared as much as she had, she placed a light kiss on his forehead and sat back in her chair to await his return to consciousness again.

When Roger next woke, it was to the searing pain of his injuries. The last of the surgical anesthesia had worn off, leaving each nerve shrieking in its' own key. And the pain was irrelevant. The vague memory he had of waking to find Tracy at his bedside earlier had been no dream. She was still there, dozing with her head pillowed along one arm, where it lay on the mattress next to him. The drugged weakness of earlier had gone as well, and he was able to raise his hand to gently stoke the bronze hair where it wisped loose from the now disheveled French twist that confined it. Its' fineness struck him again, as it had in the hospice where he had held her, comforted her, a few weeks before. Her subtle perfume was one he couldn't identify, though it tantalized, and he watched her, seeing the weariness and the worry that remained in her face even in sleep. He wound a strand of her hair between his fingers, letting the length of it trail through them. She stirred, her eyes opening directly into his. Once again, her ability to see into him, to recognize everything that made him what he was left him feeling flayed, intimately exposed in a way that had no physical corollary. He did not look away from the unflinching hazel eyes, instead letting her in, trusting that she would not use what she saw, his weaknesses, his past, against him. When she smiled faintly and brushed his hair away from his face where it had fallen in his sleep, he knew that trust had not been misplaced.

Tracy, groggy with the lethargy that accompanied lack of sleep and unintended naps, could not have said why seeing into Roger's soul this time was so different an experience, save that it was deliberate, a choice he made rather than one that simply happened without conscious will on either of their parts. She could do no less than he, and refused to break that wrenching eye contact until he had done so first, letting it once again be his choice. It left her feeling shaky, her heart pounding in her ears, with an ache in her chest and behind her eyes she recognized as grief. Grief for a man she _knew_ without knowing, for the isolation, the solitude of the enigma that was Roger. She recognized it also as love. Intense in its' sharpness, it held the same knowledge of having encountered a soul mate as her nearly instantaneous bond with Vince had. The only explanation that made any sense to her was Vinnie's description of Lococco as a brother, a missing piece and part of who he, Vince, was, inextricable from his heart and psyche. And now from hers as well. Darkness and light, pain and joy, together the pair made up a being more complete in all its' flaws and strengths than anyone Tracy had ever encountered. How she could not have realized that loving Roger was inevitable eluded her now, in the illumination of that insight. She only wished that knowing what to do about it was as obvious.

"God, Vince will be glad you're awake," she said into the silence between them. "It was everything I could do to get him out of here at five this morning," she told him. "And I don't think he would have left if he hadn't had to meet with Capuzi."

"Why is he meeting with Capuzi?" Roger asked, voice rough, when he had swallowed once or twice, his throat feeling bruised in the aftermath of seven hours on a surgical respirator.

"Did you see who did the shooting?" she asked.

"No," Lococco replied tersely, self-contempt unmistakable in that single word.

"I did," she told him, seeing the sudden tension in his body in response to this news. "It was Brandon Castellano. And it was _me_ he was aiming at." The flash of pure rage in Roger's eyes matched that which she had seen in Vinnie's when she had told him the same thing. Roger's reflexive attempt to rise forced her to drop her hands onto his shoulders and lean over him with enough of her weight to keep him down. It would never have worked had he been fit and hale, but in his weakness, she held him down with frighteningly little effort. "Roger, stop it!" she admonished sharply, afraid he would aggravate his injuries by fighting her. "Vince is ready to declare an all out war on the Genoveses if they don't hand over Brandon. Don't you dare egg him on, dammit! This is not the time to be indulging in macho blood-letting! There's more going on than just Castellano's personal vengeance against us, and you know it. And so does Vinnie!" She locked eyes with Lococco once more, this time daring him to disagree. She watched intellect gain the upper hand over instinct as he relaxed limply back against the mattress, and she let him go, straightening. "I need you to help me persuade him to stay cool, Roger. War with the Genoveses is a loosing proposition. If we can't out-think them, we're fucked. We may very well be fucked anyway, but I'm damned if I'll risk the two of you getting killed over this! Not to mention the house-full of wet-behind-the-ears kids we have playing security guard. The only one of them who has any real idea how ugly this could get is Lou."

Lococco stared up at her, having heard nothing beyond the words that revealed her equal concern for his safety and Vinnie's. The slow pounding of his heart was akin to fear, yet completely unlike it. The single statement had made real a set of barely defined and nebulous hopes, dazing him. The knowledge that Vince had been right, that Tracy entertained feelings for him that were every bit as strong as those she had for her husband, left him breathless. And he could no more betray Vince than she could. To want a woman as he wanted this one, and to be thwarted in that desire out of loyalty to the man she had married, was beyond his experience. Sleeping with her would serve only to whet his appetite for her. What he wanted was to immerse himself in her body, to surround himself with her, lose himself in her, until he had managed to satiate himself, to fill the voids in his soul. It was a hunger that was unappeasable without causing unforgivable pain to a man who had become more than a brother to him.

Tracy knew she had lost his attention, seeing the glazed look in his gray eyes. "Roger?" she said, watching his focus snap back to her. "What is it?" she asked.

He shook his head slightly. "Nothing," he said bleakly. "So what do you have in mind? We're gonna have to come up with something that'll distract Vinnie from slitting Castellano's throat, at least until we have some assurance that the Genoveses will let it alone." He ignored the furrow on her forehead signaling her knowledge that he had not answered the question she had asked.

"I don't know, but hearing your voice, knowing you're going to be okay, would definitely help in the distraction department. I promised I'd let him know as soon as you woke up. He should be done with Chero by now. How bout it? Are you up for more visitors?" she asked, tone teasing, but not liking the colorlessness of his skin. His eyes looked bruised, the fine skin below them dark with pain.

"Anything, as long as it works," he said, unable to disguise his weariness.

Tracy looked down at him, worried afresh. "Maybe you'd better try to sleep. I'll tell him to come by in a few hours," she suggested, watching him close his eyes and nod slightly. She hesitated a moment, then bent and very softly kissed his cheek. His eyes flew open again, astonishment in them as he stared up at her. She felt herself color yet again and ignored it. "Sleep well, Roger," she told him as she turned to leave.

Lococco watched her leave, thoughts and emotions in upheaval.

Vince stalked around the massive walnut table in Capuzi's diningroom, anger radiating from him in waves. "So you're telling me that this is _my_ fault?" he snarled at the elderly don.

"Vincenzo, you made your _wife_ Consiglieri." Capuzi said grimly. "To scum like Castellano, that makes her a target. You cannot break the rules and still expect everyone else to play by them."

"Women have _never_ been targets, Chero. Not unless they drew blood. And even then, only by sanction of the don of dons. That tells me Eboli knew who his punk-ass wiseguy was going gunning for. And if he didn't, then Castellano is one major liability that he'd be better off getting rid of. What I need to know is, which is it?" Vince started a second circuit of the table.

"What makes you so sure it wasn't Lococco Brandon was shooting at?" the old man asked.

"For one thing, it was a fluke that he was along to pick Trace up in the first place. In the second, I trust my wife's ability to tell when there are guns being fired at her. She made eye contact with the _puttan_, for god's sake! If Roger hadn't been there, she might have wound up in the hospital instead of him — or on a slab." Vince was beyond caring who he offended by now. "If you can't — or won't — set up a meet with Eboli, I'll find someone who can, or I'll start whacking his guys until he decides to chat. Take your pick."

Capuzi scowled. "I have a call in to Thomas. Do nothing until I have heard back from him, Vincenzo."

Terranova turned to face the don. "You have forty eight hours to arrange it. After that, it's open season." He glanced at Hanley, who had stood stoically silent through this tirade in his position to one side of the doorway, ostensibly to prevent interruptions. "We're outta here," he told the younger man, who nodded and opened the door so that Terranova could stride through it, then followed his employer out of the room and out of the stately mansion without a word.

Hanley drove them back to the Plaza, spending the ride worrying silently about the teetering peace in the city. He was under no misapprehension that Terranova would not do as he said. Whether anyone beside Vince and Capuzi realized it, New York hung on the brink of a bloody war if the situation could not be resolved, and quickly. As he pulled into the garage, he cruised the aisles warily, not about to repeat his mistake of the previous day and simply assume all was well. This time, and from now, he would not park the Benz until he had traversed every aisle that had a clear view of their reserved parking spot. If they were going to draw fire, he'd rather it was in an armor-plated tank like the car than on foot in the concrete cavern of the garage.

Vince knew what Hanley was doing, and approved, trying to curb his restlessness. The only word he'd had on Roger's condition had been a voicemail message on his cell phone service three hours before when Tracy had informed him that Lococco had just come out of the recovery room, and that she would wait with him until he woke, or until the hospital staff threw her out. Surely he had to have come out of it by now

His cell phone rang, vibrating in the pocket of his suit coat soundlessly. He snatched it and answered brusquely. "What?"

Tracy's voice in his ear sent a wave of relief through him. "Vinnie? Roger's in a room. He was awake for a few minutes, but he's still pretty out of it. I'm coming home with Alex. Lou is staying to keep an eye on things here, okay?"

"Yeah, babe. Any word on his condition?" he asked her, exhaustion making itself felt with insistence he could no longer ignore.

"I was just on my way to try and pry some information out of someone," she told him, steel in her voice. "I'm not leaving until I have a better picture of how bad off he is."

He grinned. "Sic em, girl," he said, his smile in his voice. "Come home as soon as you can," he told her. "I love you."

"Love you, too," was her reply as she hung up.

He put the phone back in his pocket as he got out of the car in response to Hanley's gesture that the coast was clear. No sooner had they gotten on the elevator than the cell phone vibrated again. This time it was Castaluccio. Vince was in no mood to be told to wait, and his response to Capuzi's prodigal son was short, to say the least. "What do you want, Rob? If you're calling to tell me to play it safe, I'll hang up now and save you your breath."

Castaluccio didn't rise to the bait. "I'm calling to tell you that if you decide to go after the Genoveses, I'll back you. So will Paul Torricelli. But you'd better be damn sure of your facts, or we're gonna bring all the other families into this. And _that_ is a war we can't win."

"You'd back me against don Capuzi's orders?" Vince asked, startled out of the surliness that had gripped him all morning. 

"You sound surprised," Rob said. "I love Chero like a father. He and Celia practically raised my sister and me after my folks were killed when I was sixteen. But I know what it's like to lose people you care about to a loose cannon. I like Roger. I like you. I respect men who can make the kind of money you two have been able to, and still keep your hands pretty clean. And up until now, you've done it without pissing anyone off. I plan on doing a lotta business with the pair of you, so it's in my best interests to make sure you stay alive. Chero is an old man. He's lost sight of the fact that if you don't demand respect, you're not going to get it. You and I, we're young enough, hungry enough, to bear that in mind in our affairs. There're a lotta people out there who'd love to hack chunks outta our businesses, no matter how legitimate they are. It's up to us to not make ourselves look like easy targets. If that means a few street brawls, then that's what it means. Besides, _no one_ goes after a woman. No one."

Vince was taken aback by this offer of aide, and he was confronted with the realization that he had descended further into his role of criminal kingpin than he ought to have. It disturbed him intensely that he could have fallen prey to the lure of revenge so completely. "Thanks, Rob. Let's just hope Eboli isn't looking for a fight, at least not yet. This is a small operation, and I can't afford to lose men."

"No one can afford to lose men, Vinnie, no matter what size their operation is. Especially not ones who've demonstrated their loyalty. You've got a good team. But you'd better start thinking about doing some recruiting, my friend. If I were you, I'd start with some more bodyguards." This last was spoken with noticeable humor. "Take care, Vincenzo. I'll check in later to see how Roger is doing."

"Thanks, Robbie." Vince hung up a second time as they arrived at their suite. He walked into the foyer, relieved that Roger's blood had been cleaned off the stone parquet, and headed for his room. "I'm gonna grab a shower and a nap, Mitch. You might wanna do the same."

"When Kev wakes up, I'll do that," Hanley agreed, stifling a yawn.

"Well, roust him outta bed if he hasn't gotten up in an hour or so," Vince suggested with a wry grin.

Hanley grinned back with a nod.

Vince was woken from a light slumber an hour later as Tracy slid into bed alongside him. Her hair was still damp from her own visit to the shower, and her skin was scented with the faintly tropical scent of the floral soap she favored. He wrapped his arms around her as she curled up against his chest, only then realizing that she wore nothing except a fine gold chain around her neck. "Hi," he said sleepily, kissing her.

"Hi, yourself," she said, kissing him back. She got him out of his clothing, vowing that she would train him to sleep in the nude, yet, no matter how long it took. "Do you just _like_ making me work for it?" she smiled as she tossed his sweats to the floor.

Vince grinned at her, all thoughts of sleep gone. "I like a woman who knows what she wants," he replied as she straddled his hips, moving onto him. He was amazed at her readiness, without foreplay, without preamble of any sort, and groaned as she gloved him with her body. She was slick with wet heat, eager for him, for his touch, and he was only too happy to oblige her, running his hands over her body, finding her erogenous zones unerringly. She came almost immediately, and he caught her by the waist, prolonging her orgasm as he rolled her beneath him and assumed control. He moved within her slowly, deeply, ensuring the maximum contact of bodies. She climaxed again, this time in multiples that sent involuntary muscle contractions rippling through her vaginal walls. The softness of her cry drove him past any possibility of self restraint and his rhythm quickened, his own orgasm flooding her as he continued his thrusts until both of them quivered with reaction. They lay, still entangled, drifting slowly into a sleep from which the stresses of the day had evaporated. The last thing he heard before sleep claimed him was her murmured endearment.

"I love you, Vinnie Terranova." Tracy wasn't sure whether he was still awake enough to have heard her, but her heart ached with her passion for this man. "Sleep well." She kissed his cheek as she had Lococco's mere hours before, and lay warmly against him.

When Vince woke again, it was three in the afternoon and some of the fog of exhaustion had cleared. His wife lay snugly alongside him, still sleeping. Some of the anxiety that had etched her features earlier had faded and he remembered, suddenly, that he had forgotten to get an update from her on what Lococco's doctors had said. He debated waking her, then thought better of it. Whatever they had said, it could not have been completely hopeless, or she would have called him from the hospital at the time rather than coming home and seducing him. Once again he was aware that their lovemaking earlier had somehow been triggered by her interactions with Roger. Her exquisite readiness, her extreme arousal had had nothing to do with Vince, of that he was certain. Something had happened between she and Lococco in that period of time between Vinnie's departure from the hospital and Tracy's. It hadn't been a squabble, either, he knew, since sex had been unagitated, eager but not frenzied. The relief of that deduction was mingled with the uneasiness of the knowledge that that meant that Tracy was becoming conscious of her feelings for Lococco. His male ego was fragile enough that he craved the reassurance of knowing that his wife desired him every bit as much as she apparently did his partner. He began to caress her lightly, knowing by now where his touch had the most impact on her senses. She woke slowly, stretching, exposing herself to his hands with sleepy pleasure, smiling at him.

"I love you," she said quietly, her enjoyment evident as he ran fingers softly over the crest of her hipbone and down the flat of her belly.

"I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing you say that," Vince smiled back at her as he bent his head to kiss her shoulder. 

"Good," Tracy sighed as his mouth descended to her breast. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of saying it." She brushed the heavy darkness of his hair back from his face, relishing its' luxuriant thickness. "You'd better not have anywhere else to be for the next few hours," she added, her hand sliding down his abdomen to tease lightly along the inside of his thigh, knowing it was one of those places that could guarantee an enthusiastic if involuntary response from him.

It had been months since they had made the opportunity to linger over their lovemaking, and Vince grinned, his body responding to her touch as reliably as ever. "Hell if I can remember," he said with amusement. "But if there is, too bad." He kissed her again, this time on the other breast. And felt her stiffen suddenly under him.

"Damn," she said, annoyance in her voice.

"What?" he asked, glancing up.

"I told Roger that I'd send you in to see him today. Hospital visiting hours only run till four thirty," she said ruefully.

Vince flopped over onto his back with a groan. "Shit." He got up and padded toward the bathroom, feeling Tracy's eyes on him. He threw her a look over his shoulder as he crossed the bathroom's threshold. "I wouldn't be leaving for anyone else," he said wryly. 

Tracy's eyes sparkled with sudden impishness. "Kiss him for me," she said, parodying Lococco's identical request to Vince a few weeks previously.

Vince grinned, catching the allusion. "Why don't I fuck him for you, too?'" he retorted, paraphrasing her comeback to this.

"Why don't you?" Tracy said, struggling to keep from grinning back.

"I think Rog would prefer it if you did the honors yourself," Vince said, cocking an eyebrow at her with mischief of his own as he disappeared into the bathroom.

Tracy lay on her back, listening to the sound of the shower, considering her husband's parting words pensively. By the time he had emerged from the bathroom again, she had steeled herself to ask a question that their banter had brought to the fore. "Vinnie?" she began, watching him dress, admiring the play of heavy muscle under his skin as he moved.

"Yeah?" he said, absently, buttoning his shirt.

"Would you?"

"Would I what?" he asked, glancing at her, curiously.

"Would you make love to Roger?"

Vince went still, startled by the question. "He'd never let me get that close, Trace," he said at last.

"But if he _did_?" she pressed.

"If he needed that from me, yeah I would." Vince said quietly after a long pause. "But I can't see it being an issue," he added eventually as he pulled on his scuffed cowboy boots. "Rog is a homophobe. Hell, you can barely get him to shake hands. Intimacy isn't one of his skills."

"Maybe it's time for that to change," Tracy observed, more to herself than to Vince.

Uncertain what to make of this conversation, Vinnie left for the hospital pondering his feelings on the matter. Lococco was probably the only man on the planet that he would even consider pursuing that kind of relationship with. He trusted Roger absolutely. But his experience with that sort of thing had been far from pleasant, occurring as it had at knife-point during his stay in the Newark State Penitentiary. It was hard to see himself seeking out such a thing deliberately. And seeing Roger looking for that type of relationship was impossible for him to imagine. Still, in the wildly improbable event that Roger should make that request of him or in some way express it as a desire, he would make love to him willingly enough. He spent most of the drive to the hospital with D'Arrigo at the wheel of the Mercedes wondering why Tracy had asked such a question in the first place.

Roger woke from strange dreams of Vietnam and the time he had spent there to the sound of Vince Terranova's quiet voice in his room. He was talking to Falcone, who had assumed Tracy's place at his bedside when she had departed several hours before. The morphine drip that polluted Lococco's I.V. line made it hard for him to focus, much less stay awake. He understood now why Vince had disliked the stuff so intensely during his own experience with it nine months before. Low-level nausea roiled his stomach and the lightheadedness only aggravated it. He made a sound low in his throat, not quite a groan, and forced his eyes open. "Vince," he managed a croak.

Vince heard the soft hail and stepped to Lococco's bedside, taking a limp hand in his own and gripping it firmly. "Right here, man," he told Roger. "What'd you go and get yourself shot for, you moron? You scared me half to death when you took that powder in the front hall yesterday. Mitch said he asked if you'd been hit and you never said a word. What were you tryin' to prove? Huh? That you'd had a sudden drop in your I.Q. or something?" He saw Lococco's faint grin.

"The only thing I could concentrate on was getting your wife back home in one piece. If I botched that the way I've botched security lately, I figured you'd kill me yourself," Lococco replied, voice raspy.

Vince ruffled Roger's wiry hair with his other hand. "You're right about that, anyway," he grinned. "Next time, don't get hit."

"Next time, there won't _be_ a next time," Lococco's voice was grim with self-recrimination. "You need to get yourself a new head of security, Vinnie. The one you've got is over the hill."

"I hope not, cause I'm on the same hill," Vince said wryly, refusing to feed into Roger's guilt. "By the way, my wife said to kiss you for her," he added, knowing that Lococco would catch the reference.

"Don't even try it, Buckwheat, or you'll lose something you ain't gonna want to do without," Roger retorted with humor, letting Vince distract him from the sense of having failed in his self-appointed task of securing their safety.

Vince laughed. "That's pretty much what I told her you'd say," he responded.

"Nice to see I'm finally starting to get you housebroken," Roger said with another effort at a smile. "You seen the doctors yet?"

"Not yet. I wanted to check in on you first," Vince said. "They tell you anything?"

"Hey, man, I'm just the patient. Why would they tell _me_ anything?" Roger complained.

"Seeing as how you haven't been awake for more than a grand total of fifteen minutes since they brought you in here, I guess it's no surprise," Vince pointed out.

"Excuses, excuses," Roger retorted.

"Seriously, Rog, how're you feeling?" Vince asked, knowing his concern was evident in his voice.

"Like someone took one of those hand held blenders, stuck it in my guts and hit the frappe' button," Roger said with a grimace. 

"A remarkably apt description," came a voice from the door of Roger's room. 

Vince turned to see a white-coated doctor in tie-dyed scrubs standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with a grin on his face. He straightened and entered the room, right hand extended. Vince shook it.

"You must be Vince Terranova," he said. "I'm Matt LaCroix. I'm the one who spent seven hours in the operating room trying to unscramble your friend's innards last night."

"What kinda luck did you have?" Vince inquired.

"Well, he's still alive," LaCroix said with a trace of flippancy. "So I must have had _some_." He saw the narrowing of Terranova's blue eyes and continued. "Doctor Graves and I — you talked to her last night — had to do some delicate reconstruction on Mr. Lococco's spleen and his right ureter. Both should be fine in a few weeks, if he takes it easy," the doctor assured them. "We did have to remove about a foot and a half of large intestine that was too badly perforated to put back together. An eminently survivable procedure, but I'm afraid it means a clear liquid diet for a week or so once we're sure that things are hooked back up properly. He's NPO till then, I'm afraid."

"NPO?" Vince asked, irritably, having no patience at the moment for jargon.

"Nothing by mouth," came the clarification. "Actually, your friend may just surprise us all and stay clear of infection. He would have been starting to spike a fever by now if any nasty little bugs had set up housekeeping in his abdominal cavity. We've got him on antibiotics, prophylactically, by I.V.. With a little luck, that'll do the trick."

Vince nodded. "How long are you planning on keeping him in here?" he asked, resigned to a lengthy stay.

"Two weeks, maybe a little more, depending on how fast he heals," LaCroix said with a shrug. He shook Vinnie's hand again, and headed for the door. "Make sure you don't tire him out," was the parting admonition. 

"He was way too cheerful about wading around in my insides for my tastes," Lococco observed.

"It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it," Vince flashed Roger a grin. They talked of inconsequentials for a moment or two longer, then Vince broached the subject of additional manpower. "Castaluccio suggested a recruitment drive, but we don't have anywhere to draw from," he said. "We need people with some personal loyalty, not a bunch'a bozos just collecting their paychecks."

Lococco considered this. "True enough, as far as it goes, but our business isn't primarily local. The people I've had working for me are desk jockeys and bureaucrats, not soldiers. I can call in a few markers with old military buddies, but that's still not gonna get us very far. I think we're going to have to get Falcone to give us a list of men in Rudy's organization who might be looking for a shortcut to positions of power and who have enough respect for their don not to take it outside his business. We need an umbrella organization, Vince. It should probably be his we go to first. Besides, this'll give him the chance to hand things off to you."

"Which is something I've been trying to avoid, Rog, in case you've forgotten."

"We don't have the luxury of being able to afford your conscience, Buckwheat. We need men, and fast. And we need men who're willing to get bloody for us, if the situation calls for it. We need an army, and we don't have time to recruit one from the ground up. Our best bet is to inherit someone else's. And Rudy's is the one most likely to be willing to extend you the kind of respect we need." Roger held eye contact with Terranova, knowing he had an uphill battle on his hands to persuade him that the only way through this was deeper in.

Vince shifted uncomfortably, not liking what he was hearing, but recognizing its' merits from a practical standpoint. "I say we table this until you're back on your feet. You're the one with command experience, here, Rog. I've always been the soldier, not the general."

"We may not have time to wait that long, Buckwheat. Your wife told me you've already stated your intentions of going after Castellano, even if you have to do it through Genovese soldiers. If you don't put together some sort of organization that at least _looks_ like a threat, Eboli'll never take you seriously."

"Speaking of which, I got a call from Rob Castaluccio this morning after my meet with Capuzi. He and Paul are willing to back us if it comes down to a fight," Vince informed his partner ruefully.

Lococco raised an eyebrow at this unexpected piece of news. "I don't like the man, and I don't trust him, but he's got brains. If he's willing to back our play, it's for more than just the obvious reasons. He say why?"

"Just that he plans on doing a lotta business with us. And going after Tracy put Brandon on his shit list big time. Women are sacrosanct, Rog. The only time they're considered legitimate targets is if they've crossed the line and started killing people."

"There's something else, Vince. And I'd be willing to bet it's personal. He's got a thing for your baby blues, maybe -"

"Or yours -" Vince interjected.

Roger ignored this and continued. "Whatever it is, we can't afford to trust him beyond a certain point. Or Torricelli either, for that matter. Another reason to take over Aiuppo's organization. Chances are, we can count on a certain personal loyalty from them that we'd be idiots to expect from Castaluccio's or Torricelli's people. I want you to talk to Pendleton in our offices downtown. I've had him looking into acquisitions that are running just at the edge of legal. It would give us places to put people, places they have a chance at proving themselves in. Places that they'll be beholding to you for handing off to them. It'd be a good way to start developing that loyalty. In the meantime, we need someone who knows electronics. The more I think about it, the less I like what went down out on the Island while we were dealing with Capuzi's party. I want someone who can fine-tune our set up, and add a few surprises that no snoop will figure on having to deal with. Hanley knows enough about hardware to start looking around. I'll have our people in the Bay Area see if they can come up with a list of names on the East Coast for us to check into." Roger shifted in his bed, clearly in pain.

"I hate to be the one to break this to you, Rog, but you're not up to _anything_ at the moment I can contact the San Francisco organization and get whatever they can give us. We'll start there. I'll schedule a little talk with Rudy about his guys, as soon as I've talked to Pendleton. Not much point in approaching Rudy's boys until I've got a few carrots to offer." Vince ran a hand through his hair absently, noticing Lococco's pallor. "Get some sleep, man. I shouldn't have laid all this on you right now."

Roger nodded slightly. "I've felt better," he admitted reluctantly. "Let me know how things are going tomorrow, Vinnie," he added. "Otherwise I'm just gonna lie here and worry about it."

Vince smiled. "You got it, Buckwheat," he agreed and gave Lococco's hand a parting squeeze. He left the hospital room and pulled aside D'Arrigo and Falcone who had been waiting patiently just outside. "Kevin, I want you to keep an eye on things here for the moment. I'll send Blanchard or Hanley down to relieve you in about six hours or so. Make sure the nurses who'll be dealing with Roger are introduced to you at the beginning of each shift. don't let anyone else into his room unless you get confirmation from which ever doctor's on duty that someone is supposed to be doing some procedure. Got it?"

At D'Arrigo's nod, he turned to Falcone. "You're off duty for a while, Lou. Get us back to the Plaza and then get some sleep. I've got a project for you in the morning." With this, he and Falcone took their leave, Falcone driving them back to the hotel. Vince used the time to explain what it was he wanted from Lou.

"Makes sense, Vinnie. Rudy's boys have known you for years. They know you're a stand-up guy. You start offering some of them a shot at some action of their own, and they'll do anything for you. Sides, they all know Rudy's plannin' on handing things off to you anyway. This'd give them a chance to see how you do business, and to get in on the ground floor of what'll be a nice little operation," Falcone commented when his next job had been outlined.

"You don't have a problem with it?" Vince asked.

"For the record, no. But Vinnie, it doesn't matter if I did. You're the boss, here. I do what you tell me to. Simple," Lou said.

Vince shook his head. "Not the way it works in my outfit," he said. "I want people who know what the hell's going on and can kick in their two cents-worth. I make the decision, but I'm not stupid enough to think I know it all. Especially when it comes to Rudy's operation. I need people with more brains then whatever they carry around in their shorts."

Lou grinned. "You're gonna have em eatin' outta your hands, Vinnie," he said, admiration in his tone. "When they figure out that you're walkin' the walk, they'll be begging to sign up"

Vince wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved by this assessment, as they rode up the elevator together. He gave Blanchard orders to relieve D'Arrigo at the hospital at midnight, then sent Falcone to bed. Hanley had just gotten up when they arrived and he assigned him the task of looking into hiring an electronics specialist. "I should have some names for you to check out by tomorrow afternoon," he added.

"Sure thing, Vince. I know a couple'a guys who might fit the bill. You want I should talk to them, too?"

Vinnie nodded. "Couldn't hurt," he agreed. "You seen Tracy?"

"She was in the kitchen last I saw her," Mitch answered. "She said something about dinner."

Vince grinned, feeling his stomach rumble at this, and headed off to find his wife.

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David Piccolini handed Susan the folded newspaper with barely concealed excitement. "Look at this," he told her, tapping the headline that read _Billionaire Shot in Garage_ with a forefinger. "Looks like your guy nearly got himself killed by someone else yesterday. He must have a real knack for making friends."

"Roger has quite a few knacks', but friendship is hardly one of them," Susan Profitt said distractedly as she scanned the article David had handed her. When she had finished, she gazed out over the lawns, not seeing them, nor the spectacular autumn foliage of the trees that surrounded Lakeview. "I think it's time for both of us to be out of here," she said after several minutes, turning her elegant brunette head to look at her young lover. She had been given permission to dress in street clothing, and been given access to rudimentary cosmetics and toiletries, and with the return of these, had begun to carry herself with her former poise. Her doctors were increasingly inclined to release her to a half way house or some such supervised off-site residence. With the intervention of S & M Profitt Enterprises, she hoped to skip that step in favor of one-on-one treatment' under the auspices of some carefully picked — and carefully absent — specialist. She expected to hear that this arrangement had been agreed to by her therapists at Lakeview any time. 

It was with some anxiety that she considered life outside the walls of the haven that had held her for the last decade. She wondered what it would be like, back among the teeming masses of New York. When she had finished her business with Roger Lococco, she intended to return to Vancouver. It had been home to her and Mel during the halcyon days of their greatest successes. She wondered whether David would still be a presence in her life by then, not particularly concerned one way or the other. "What have your bugs told you lately?" she inquired.

"Not much. They've all been in the city for the last few days. I guess with Lococco in the hospital, it makes sense for them to stay in town," Piccolini shrugged. "That's gonna have things pretty stirred up, I bet."

Susan nodded. "It may even be a good time for you to consider getting hired into their organization. Roger is out of the picture, and he's the one whose radar is most likely to pick you up as trouble."

Piccolini frowned. "I don't want to leave you alone in this place," he said, balking at the idea of being cut off from her.

She smiled at him winsomely. "It wouldn't be for long," she assured him. "I expect Dr. Spencer to authorize my release any day, now."

Piccolini was aware that Susan's departure from the hospital was immanent, but the thought of going without her favors for even a few days left him tense and frustrated. He knew she was aware of his growing sexual addiction to her, and that she used it to her advantage, but he couldn't have cared less. Visions of days of exquisite sex, enough to both satiate and stimulate his appetite for her, were concomitant with his view of her release. His being mewed up in the house on Long Island scarcely fit that fantasy. 

Susan was well aware of his agenda, and had no problem accommodating it, as long as he didn't loose sight of the bigger picture. She gave him the look that she had come to recognize short-circuited his ability to think rationally. "We can talk about this tonight," she told him, softly, voice promising all he dreamed of, and more besides. She could see his erection where it pressed against his jeans, and allowed herself a moment's smug satisfaction that she could rouse a man over fifteen years younger than she to a state of mindless lust. That he was becoming an acceptable lover under her tutelage made it a source of pleasure, rather than an annoyance. There were even times, now, when he touched her with especial skill, that she could almost imagine it was her brother's body that mated hers. Mel had been her lover for nearly twenty six years, and for most of that time, her _only_ one. His was the touch she craved, missed to the depths of her soul. If she could imagine herself in his arms once more, even for mere moments, she could ask no more of her current lover than that.

When David came to her room two nights later in a state of high excitement, she was hard-pressed to stifle a smile. The gods, such as they were, were smiling upon them as well, it seemed. When he had told her his news, the conversations his surveillance devices had picked up in the Long Island house, she had shared his enthusiasm, not least because her release from Lakeview into the custody of S & M Profitt Enterprises had just been announced for the following day. Sex that night was unrestrained, an exercise in primal lust. She indulged his every whim and promised more the next night, in a bed far from Lakeview's rules and supervision. When Susan called out Mel's name in the heat of her passion, David considered himself an absolute success.

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Vince was startled by Aiuppo's appearance when he went to see the old don two days after Lococco's shooting. The sparkle had gone from his eye, and the spring from his step. That so great a change had been wrought in the three weeks since Capuzi's party shocked him. He took Rudy's bodyguard aside to ask quietly what ailed the old man.

"Dunno, he won't say. If you can get it outta him, let me know," was the worried answer to his inquiry. 

Concerned, Vince sequestered himself in the library with the don, his own agenda shelved until he could determine what was wrong. "Spit it out, Rudy," he requested as he sat in one of the paired wingbacks before the cold hearth. "You look like hell, and your guys are walking around like their dog just died."

"I am tired, Vincenzo. Old and tired. What can I do for you?" the don waved off his concern and changed the subject, forcing a smile.

"Are you sick? Rudy, what's wrong?" Vince refused to be diverted. 

"Nothing, my boy. How is your partner? And your wife?" Aiuppo asked.

Vince sighed, recognizing when his worries were being evaded. "Tracy's fine. A little rattled, but fine. Roger's a mess, but they say he'll recover. He saved her life, Rudy."

"He was careless, Vincenzo. Your men were not paying attention to business. If they had been, perhaps it would not have been necessary for Ruggiero to stop those bullets."

Vinnie stifled the flare of irritation, knowing that it stemmed from the knowledge that Aiuppo was right. "I know that, Rudy. It won't happen again. My men are rookies when it comes to a shooting war." He paused, then braced himself. "It was a hard way to learn that lesson, but it's not a mistake they'll make twice. Actually, that's part of what I wanted to talk to you about It's pretty obvious that we need more guys. Guys that know the score, and who know me well enough to be willing to risk their lives for me. I talked to Lou, and he gave me a few names. He says there're some of your guys who may be looking for a shot at doin' some business, who may not have had the opportunity up till now." He saw Rudy's interest sharpen, a glint showing in the old man's eye as he considered this.

"Luigi is a bright boy. He pays attention. An organization like mine always has more men with talent than there are places to put them." He nodded to himself. "What sort of opportunities were you planning on offering them?"

"Roger's had our people in _Pangea_ looking around for businesses we can step into that are pretty much legit, but with some cash-flow problems. I've got about eight of them that need someone with management skills, and maybe some manpower. There'll be more as we go along, but it's a start. You wanna talk to your guys about it? See if you've got any takers?" Vince suggested.

Aiuppo nodded, more life in his eyes than there had been when Vince had first arrived. "What will your Mr. McPike say to this? You will be crossing back and forth over that line regularly. Are you willing to take that risk?"

"I don't have a lotta choice, Rudy. If I have to choose between risking my morals and risking the lives of people I care about, I know which way I'll fall on that issue. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Vince said quietly, the compromise he was being forced into very like the one that had driven men like Aiuppo in their criminal endeavors.

"It is easy to sit in judgment, Vincenzo," the old man said sympathetically. "It is much harder to live as an honorable man. It is human nature to do what you must to protect the things you love. There are times it requires sacrifices. It is one of the things I had hoped to see you learn. Never think that these decisions have come easily to me, or men like me. Those of us who wished for nothing more than to protect our families, and to make a place for ourselves, have not always lived honorably. Some of us have given up trying. That it is possible to do so is what I hope you can remind the rest of us, those who have forgotten."

Vince sighed. "That doesn't make me feel any better about having to come to you for help, for having to use your men to safeguard my family," he said ruefully. "But I just don't have time to start this from the ground up, and I pray I won't be involved here long enough to be able to, anyway."

"Vincenzo, I am old. I will not live all that much longer. I miss your mother. I'm tired. But while I live, and for as long as you remain here, my men are yours. I will look at the names Luigi has suggested, and perhaps add a few more for you to choose from. All I ask is that you find one from among them you can groom to replace us when we are both gone. The rest will need leadership, if they are to avoid a blood bath over the remains of my business."

Vinnie leaned back against the chair, staring unseeingly at the fireplace. "I'll do my best, Rudy," he said, knowing how difficult a task the old man had just given him, and knowing that it was one he could not refuse. To do so would risk leaving the situation unresolved, and ripe for an opportunistic takeover by men without the sense of honor Aiuppo desired in the leadership of his operation.

"That is all I can expect. And your best is better than most, Vincenzo." Aiuppo smiled at his stepson with gentle affection. "Give my love to Tracy," he added, feeling the younger man's restlessness.

"I will," Vince assured him as he rose to his feet.

Roger woke from a drugged sleep, all senses engaged, heart pounding in his chest. He lay with his eyes closed, evaluating the information they provided him, his hearing acute enough to discern the quiet sound of someone's breathing to his left. He opened his eyes then to find Mitchell Hanley seated beside him, paging through a magazine.

Hanley felt the weight of Lococco's gaze on him and looked up. "Hey, Roger, how're you doing?" he asked, putting down the magazine. It had been four days since the shooting and Lococco had spent much of that time asleep. Hanley had taken his turn at the bedside, ensuring no unexpected visitors were granted access to the man. He was pleased to see some of the sharpness had returned to Roger's eyes.

"Mitch," Roger said, voice raspy with lack of use. "How long have I been in this place?"

"Just about four days to the hour, if you count from the time they first got you into Emergency," Hanley told him. "They've kept you pumped full of pain killers since then. You've been pretty out of it. Vinnie and Mrs. T just left half an hour ago," he told the patient. "They'll be throwing me out, pretty soon. Then it's a chair in the hall till Kev gets his butt in here."

Roger swallowed to lubricate his mouth and throat. "You having any luck with finding an electronics whiz?" he asked.

"Not so far. _Pangea_ hasn't been much help in that department — they've got problems of their own. Their server or their mainframe seems to have picked up a bug. They haven't had any luck getting someone in to take a look. I told them that if they find someone, to let me know, and maybe we can borrow em for a while."

Lococco nodded slightly. "Vinnie get ahold of our people in the Bay Area?"

"Yeah. Most of them are consultants, and they aren't too keen on traipsing out to the East Coast."

"Get one of them out here, if you haven't gotten anywhere by the weekend," Roger advised. "I don't care how much it costs. I want things secure. And they sure as hell haven't been lately."

Mitch did not respond to this directly. "Vince talked to don Aiuppo a couple of days ago. He's supposed to start meeting with guys tomorrow, to see about bringing them into your action," he informed his employer, attempting to distract Roger from the almost paranoid worry about security that had manifested in the wake of the ambush in the garage.

"Good," Lococco commented emphatically. "If this gets ugly, we need a broader labor pool to draw on." He stirred restlessly in the bed. "I'm atrophying," he complained irritably. "Help me sit up," he commanded.

"I don't think that's such a good idea, Roger," Mitch said, reluctant to risk complicating Lococco's injuries.

"That wasn't a request," Roger snapped as he flipped the sheets off his chest and triggered the bed's controls to assist him into a more upright position. Ignoring the searing pain in his back and right side, he struggled to swing his feet down to the floor, a white-knuckled grip on the railings of the bed. He sat, swaying, ignoring the disarray of his hospital gown and the warmth of the Foley catheter along one thigh. His body had been the tool of his trade for most of his life, and he deeply resented its' weakness now. Mitchell steadied him carefully, saying nothing. He waited until the vertigo abated somewhat before forcing himself to rise to his feet. He stood, vision darkening, refusing to surrender to the feeling of decrepitude that had settled in his muscles. He took a step. Then another. Haltingly, he made the short journey to the door of his room and back with only minimal support from Mitch, who maneuvered the I.V. stand, until he reached the bed. That brief exertion left him breathing hard, panting with the effort. He needed considerable help in getting back into his bed, and suffered Mitchell's assistance with poor grace.

"Satisfied?" Hanley asked wryly. "You've just successfully demonstrated your super-human will."

"You ever taken a bullet?" Roger asked through clenched teeth.

"No, thank god," Mitch said, hardly feeling as though he had been denied a salutary experience.

"If you don't start moving as soon as possible, you wind up with pneumonia," Lococco informed him shortly. "I've been lying here for four days plugged in to things in ways that don't do much for a man's self-esteem. It's damn well time I got my feet under me, or you might as well just bury me now and save the hassle later."

This Hanley could muster a certain sympathy for, and he grinned. When Roger's doctor put in an appearance minutes later, she was pleased at Lococco's efforts, though warned him from overexerting himself until his internal injuries could begin to heal more completely. "Keep the walks short," she said. "I'll have Dr. LaCroix remove the catheter tomorrow if you can make it to the bathroom and back." She departed with this lure, leaving Roger in nominally better spirits.

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David Piccolini stood patiently at the reception desk of _Pangea's_ Manhattan offices, shifting his tool-kit and assorted equipment from one hand to the other as he waited for the receptionist to focus her attention on him.

Finally, she disconnected the caller who had monopolized her attention for the last five minutes and smiled up at him apologetically. "Sorry bout that," she said. "Now who did you say you were here to see?"

"Your IT manager, or whoever it is that would have called me about a mainframe that keeps crashing," Piccolini replied.

The receptionist laughed shortly. "What IT manager?" she said with heavy irony. "I guess you'd better talk to Joanie. She's the one who deals with that possessed piece of shit."

Piccolini smiled at this, knowing that his skills would be on par with an exorcism as far as anyone in this office would be concerned. "That bad, huh? The voicemail message I got was pretty panicked-sounding."

"You could say that," she said as she dialed the extension for the office manager. "Hey Joanie, there's a computer guy here to look at the server," she informed her supervisor. There was a pause while the woman on the other end of the line responded. "Okay, I'll tell him." She ended the call and smiled up at him again. "She'll be right out. don't be surprised if she falls to her knees and kisses your feet in relief," she added. "We've been trying to get someone down here to straighten out the damn thing for two days, but every service we called is booked solid into next week. We definitely couldn't wait that long."

David smiled back at the chatty little receptionist, refraining from mentioning that he had managed to thwart their efforts to locate assistance with another little phone hack that neatly intercepted their outgoing calls and let him pick up when they were in search of computer help. Which, of course, he had arranged for them to need by infecting their mainframe with a messy but essentially harmless virus that he had modified from the Michaelangelo virus that made the rounds every year. 

A harried-looking woman in her fifties hurried out through the main doors behind where the receptionist sat, catching sight of him with an expression of profound relief. "Oh, thank God," she said. "This way," she waved him through into the main offices and led the way to an inner, windowless room with banks of computer equipment. Purposefully, he set up his laptop and found the data entry station, pulling out the retractable keyboard. The woman hovered anxiously and he grinned at her reassuringly. "You don't need to hang around if you've got other stuff to do. Most of this is pretty uninteresting."

She wavered indecisively and then nodded. "I'll be in my office. Just have someone page me if you need anything, or when you finish." With this, she departed, still casting uncertain glances over her shoulder.

He ignored her exit, linking his laptop to the mainframe and running a cursory diagnostic to ensure that there was nothing more wrong than what he himself had caused. It took a bit over an hour for him to clean up his mess and explore the system so as to offer suggestions that would have some basis in reality. When he had finished, he stuck his head out of the computer room and hailed the nearest employee. "Hey, man, could you page the office manager? I think everything's back up and running." This announcement was met with obvious relief as the employee hastened to do as he'd been asked.

When the office manager appeared a moment later, he smiled at her reassuringly. "Well, the bad news is, you picked up a new virus. This is the first time I've seen it in action." True enough, since he had created it only the day before. "The good news is, it doesn't seem to have damaged any of the files, as far as I could see. Have your employees keep their eyes open, and have your IT people load your tape back-up as soon as you can. That way, you'll have uncorrupted files.. You'll lose what ever work's been done since it crashed, but that's better than risking funky files."

The woman nodded. I've been pushing for getting an Information Systems Department set up since I started, five months ago. Maybe now they'll listen to me," she added with barely concealed annoyance. "I don't suppose you're looking for a new line of work?"

David flashed his most charming smile. "Just ask me," he said.

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"Mrs. T, this is David Piccolini, the electronics guy we're borrowing from _Pangea_ for a while," Mitch introduced the slightly built young man at his side.

Tracy eyed the man, recognizing the stamp of computer geek' in the slender, somewhat weedy-looking frame. She held out a hand and it was shaken with promising firmness. "Nice to meet you," she said pleasantly. "What do you do at _Pangea_?"

"Actually, I just started. They needed an IT guy and I was in the right place at the right time and they hired me. Course, I'm not gonna be able to keep their systems up if I'm doing private work for you and your husband," he added.

Tracy smiled. "I don't think they'll hold it against you, though they may hold it against Vinnie and me for stealing you away temporarily." She turned to Mitch. "Have you got him set up yet?"

"Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about. We need a room for him, and the ground floor's full. Do I put him upstairs?" Mitch asked.

Tracy considered this for a moment. "I have a better idea," she said. "Dave, bring your stuff in and put it in the main library for the moment. We have some shuffling around to do to get you squared away," she told Piccolini. The young man nodded and headed out to retrieve his belongings.

"So what's the plan?" Hanley asked, curious.

"We're moving Roger into the suite across from Vinnie's and mine," she said, seeing Hanley's skepticism. "Oh, I know it'll piss him off, Mitch, but that's just too bad. Our wing is the most secure and both Vinnie and I are tired of traipsing all the way to the other end of the house when we need to talk to him. Besides, that was where he was supposed to be in the first place, he was just having a temper tantrum about it when he moved in."

"Okay, if you're sure" Hanley's lack of conviction was obvious.

Tracy laughed. "Don't worry, I'll make sure he knows it wasn't your idea. Once you've gotten his stuff out, move yours up and put Dave into your room. He's not going to be here indefinitely, I gather, so I'd rather upgrade your living quarters than give them to a temp. That work for you?"

Mitch nodded agreeably, not opposed to moving into the more spacious and less generically furnished room that Lococco had inhabited until now. "You want just his stuff moved? Or the furniture too?"

"Just his things, since that means I get to go shopping. And _you_ get to come along and stand guard over me while I find stuff to furnish the suite. We have at least a week before Roger gets home, so it should be do-able. Oh, and make sure to introduce Dave to Othello and Iago," Tracy saw him grin as he headed off to find another able body to help him relocate Lococco's belongings.

Roger, free now of the catheter that had contrived to make his life even more miserable than gunshot wounds alone could do, padded down hospital corridors using the I.V. stand as a make-shift cane as he paced restlessly. He was a notoriously bad patient, and boredom and discomfort had conspired to make him the bane of the private wing. The nurses gave him wide berth in his wanderings. At least he had been able to trade his hospital gown for a set of drawstring pants that Tracy had brought for him, without his having to ask, the third day of his stay. Now, a week later, he was feeling well enough that he had begun plaguing his doctors for release. He had yet to convince them he was ready, though he had finally been placed on a clear liquid diet as his intestines had healed enough to handle the traffic. He almost wished they hadn't bothered. Canned broth and Jell-O offended his gourmet's palate. Weight he hadn't need to lose had dropped off his frame, leaving every rib showing, his cheekbones jutting against the skin of his face in a way they hadn't since his thirties. The I.V. was slated for removal with the next shift change, and he couldn't help being relieved. His arms had come to resemble pincushions, between blood draws and I.V. sticks.

He had finally managed to convince Vince that dragooning the hired hands into babysitting duty, at least during daylight hours, was unnecessary. He was capable of enough mobility by now that he was no longer a sitting duck, merely a limping one. Enforced inactivity went counter to his nature, and he had read every magazine, book, medication package and candy wrapper he could find. Television bored him, and he had demanded that someone bring him something to read. 

By the time he'd made it back to his room, he had begun to ache with the burn of lactic acid in weakened muscles. It did nothing to improve his mood. Tracy was waiting for him as he returned, carrying a large bag from one of the larger bookstore chains weighted with an assortment of hardback books. "Thank god," was his response to this as he levered himself back into bed.

"Rumor has it you've been mean to the nurses," Tracy scolded him. "Stop being a brat, or I'll bop you on the nose."

"Just try it," Roger grinned at her, then went through the bag, evaluating the titles as he pulled them out. Tracy had obviously picked them out with his eclectic interests in mind. He paused when he got to a slim volume on Russian organized crime in America. He looked up at her, cocking an eyebrow. "Homework?" he inquired.

"You're the one with all the time on his hands," she retorted with a shrug. "I just assumed someone should know what's going on, if we are in fact dealing with the new Mafiya'."

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied with mock contrition. "Is there going to be a test?"

"Probably," she smiled. "I'll have to get back to you on that."

"So how're things on the home front?" Roger asked, stacking the books on the table beside his bed.

"The new computer guy is going through our systems with a fine tooth comb. He's added more closed circuit cameras to the fence line, the beach and around the house, and it's set up to be monitored from any PC in the house. He's also added firewalls and all sorts of other stuff I don't even begin to understand. His next mission seems to be to revamp the cell service so that we can use them like walkie-talkies or something, as well as regular phones. I'll let Mitchell explain it all to you. It's like he and Dave are speaking in tongues or something for all I understand about it," she added with a smile.

"Boys and their toys, huh?" Roger observed wryly, knowing he tended to fall into that category on occasion. 

Tracy laughed and settled in the chair beside his bed, prepared to entertain him until he tired of her company.

Vince, accompanied by Mitch, Capuzi and Capuzi's man, McLean, arrived at the stately house in the Great Neck area of Long Island that was home to the current acting head of the Genovese crime family, Thomas Eboli. It had taken pressure from the entire consortium of dons who had recruited Vince initially to persuade Eboli that a meeting was essential. To Vince, this didn't bode well for a successful encounter and he tried to stave off the edginess that coursed along his nerves as they were escorted to the study where Eboli conducted business.

Eboli was seated behind a massive mahogany desk that could easily have served as a helipad. He didn't look up from the computer screen that occupied his attention until Capuzi dispensed with an invitation and seated himself in one of the upholstered chairs opposite the desk. Eboli leaned back in his desk chair and picked up the cigar that smoldered in an ash tray beside his elbow. "So. Chero. You have a grievance." It was a statement rather than a question.

"A concern, Tomaso," Capuzi corrected. "Some of us with interests in Brooklyn, and other parts of the city as well, have become aware of a certain pattern in deals gone bad."

"So you said on the phone," Eboli said, unimpressed. "This _baccalá_ -" he waved a hand dismissively at Vince. "- has convinced you all there's some sort of conspiracy afoot to undermine our organization, or something like that? That's bullshit. If you've got deals goin' south, look a little closer to home." He cast a meaningful look at Terranova, before returning his attention to Capuzi.

"With all due respect, it's not bullshit, it's a fact. We've tied the Russian mob to a couple of things that could have made big trouble for some of the dons with investments here. We're looking into a number of other little disasters over the last few years to see if there's a connection. And since the Russians are in _your_ pocket, either you're okaying their moves, or you're being made a fool out of. But that's not why I'm here. One of your made guys, an ivy-leaguer by the name of Brandon Castellano, tried to murder my wife ten days ago. He comes after me or mine again and I'm going to kill him. Slowly. And if I find out you sanctioned the hit on Tracy, I'll kill you, too." Vince had not joined Capuzi in sitting down, his anger too great to wait placidly to be heard.

Capuzi turned to glare at him. "Vincenzo, let me deal with this."

Vince glared back at the old don. "Go right ahead. I've said what I come to say." He returned his attention to Eboli. "One more thing. If I were you, I'd start checking on your Cossack friends. Because you're looking at open warfare if the rest of the families find out you're behind the Russian action on their turf." With this, he turned on his heel, beckoning Mitchell after him, and strode out of the room.

Eboli watched the departing pair, recognizing the rigid anger in Terranova's back and the man's inherent power, as he would recognize any alpha male who confronted him.

He turned his attention to Capuzi, irritation blending with amusement on his features. "So. Brandon went after a woman," he said.

Capuzi nodded. "Vincenzo's partner is in the hospital recovering from wounds he received protecting her. I would strongly recommend that you warn Castellano off. If Vince finds him, he _will_ kill him. Even if it means open hostilities with you. And he has backing from some of the families."

This came as news to the don of dons, and his eyes narrowed. "War is bad for business," he said grimly.

"So is shooting another man's wife," Capuzi said coldly, getting to his feet and making for the door.

Thomas Eboli watched the elderly don depart, waiting until the door of his study closed firmly behind the man before picking up his phone and dialing an extension. "Georgio, find Brandon. Now." He slammed the receiver back down, cursing Castellano's hot-headed idiocy.

"So what do you think?" Tracy asked her husband, having taken him on a guided tour of the suite she had spent the week outfitting for Lococco's habitation.

"I think he's gonna be pissed," Vince observed, with mingled amusement and trepidation.

"Besides that," Tracy said impatiently.

Vince walked through the main room, which had been converted to a study, one more time, eyeing the set-up. A comfortable seating group occupied the area in front of the elaborately carved fireplace, sofa and upholstered chairs in the glove-soft leather that Tracy had chosen for all the masculine rooms. The sparse furniture was largely Mission-style, most of it antique. It was profoundly Lococco. Vinnie wondered how she had known his tastes so accurately. A large desk stood under the bank of windows, laden with Roger's sleek desktop computer system. It had some of the feel of the house Lococco had built for himself in Sonoma, and he suspected that Roger would be comfortable here if he could overcome the anger at having been moved without his knowledge or will. 

The bedroom was also Mission-style, a slatted head and footboard bracketing the king size bed. The linens in both the bedroom and the spectacular bathroom were unbleached cotton and silk, the cream-colored fabrics giving the rooms a spa-like air, cool and restful. The unbleached cotton also framed the windows that lined the outer two walls, their view of the sound through the trees lending the room the feeling of an expensive resort.

"If he doesn't like it, I'll take it," Vince grinned at her, finally. "But I guarantee you're going to have a minor explosion to deal with when he finds out."

Tracy nodded, her own apprehension plain for a split second before resolution returned to her face. "I'm expecting one." She turned to meet her husband's eyes. "Do you have a problem with him being so close?" She saw him go still as he caught the subtext.

"Trace, the two of you are going to have to find a way to make this work. I can't tell you what that's going to be, all I can tell you is that it'll be _your_ decision. Roger won't force the issue. And I sure as hell won't. But I can tell you this, Hon, he's in love with you. And I think you feel the same way about him. And I'll tell you something else, Tracy. If the two of you don't find a way to live together without the sort of squabbles you've been having up till now, I'm pulling the plug on this whole thing" he told her gravely, knowing that honesty was essential now, knowing that all of their lives depended on this. "I talked to Frank. He's holding a warrant for Roger's arrest. I promise you, I'll have McPike use it, if you can't work out a truce with him. I won't risk Roger's life, or yours — or mine — because he's so caught up in picking fights with you that he can't pay attention to anything else. Castellano should never have gotten that close to you. Roger wasn't doing his job. Next time, it could kill him. Or one of the rest of us."

Tracy stared at her husband, numb with an astonishment that bordered on fear. "You _want_ me to sleep with him?" she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

"No, goddammit," he said vehemently, frustration evident in his body language as he began to pace around the study that spoke so strongly of its' intended resident. "But what I want doesn't matter." He turned to face her again, regretting the necessity for this discussion as he acknowledged its' inevitability. "It's what _you_ want, what _Roger_ wants that matters right now. The two of you are going to have to decide exactly what that is." He sighed, gathering her stiff body into his arms, holding her close as he rested his chin on the crown of her head. "One thing that'll never change, Trace," he continued quietly. "I love you. I'll always love you. Your choosing to sleep with Roger won't change that. I want you to be happy. And god knows, I want Rog to be happy. He's overdue. If I have to share you with another man, I'd rather it was Lococco than anyone else on the planet. But I'm not going to let him just walk off with you, unless that's what _you_ want. I'm yours, for as long as you want me. You're not something I want to live without." He felt her arms encircle his waist slowly, felt her relax against him. He let the silence rest undisturbed between them, having done what he could to reassure her.

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"Castellano appears to play by a different set of rules than the rest of them," Berezov told his boss. "Before I could even approach the man about assistance, he had tried to gun down Terranova's wife. I haven't been able to get our offer to him through the usual channels. Thomas has his men in a state since Capuzi and Terranova came calling the other day. They shared their suspicions of our involvement in their troubles. Thomas has been wrangling with Marat, trying to find out what he has to do with this."

"Again, things have taken an unpredictable direction with Terranova's interference in them. What have you heard from our people inside Balagula's organization?" Turpasian inquired, restraining his irritation.

Berezov's knife-slash smile was mocking. "Marat and Eboli spent an hour screaming at each other," he said with grim amusement. "Marat thinks Thomas is full of shit, and called him a fool for buying into Terranova's theories. He is as stupid as he is blind, Aleksei. When we bring him down, he won't have any idea what hit him."

"What was Eboli's reaction to this?" Turpasian asked.

"Exactly what you'd expect. He didn't take kindly to being called a fool. He warned Balagula to stay away from Terranova and his group, or risk a major war with the Italians. Terranova has connections with families all over the north east."

Turpasian considered this silently for a long moment. "Terranova is a double-edged sword, Ivan. He has the wits to be a serious enemy if he discovers the game we're playing. But if we are careful, _very_ careful, we may be able to aim him at Marat. If we can get him to do our dirty work for us, so much the better. We'd better see about getting a man into his operation."

Berezov nodded, considering how this might best be managed. "He is assuming control of some of Rudy Aiuppo's under-utilized people, ones with aspirations. He is planning on putting them into his company's new acquisitions. Maybe there's an opportunity there. I'll see what I can do."

Turpasian nodded, shaking the ash off the cigarette he held and taking a long drag, exhaling the smoke out his nose to join the haze that already hung in the close air of the office. "Do that. And keep trying to find a way to seduce Castellano. If we can drive a wedge between Marat and Thomas, we would be well on our way to destabilizing the whole Italian power structure in the city."

"I'll find a way," Berezov assured his don. 

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Brandon Castellano limped slightly as he paced the carpet in front of Thomas Eboli's desk, a souvenir of his last direct encounter with Vincent Terranova and Roger Lococco, when one of Roger's .38 caliber slugs had shattered his knee cap.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, going after Terranova's _wife_, you idiot!?" Eboli demanded, fighting a losing battle to keep his temper. "She's _famiglia_ — a Steelgrave! That name still carries weight in Jersey. You capping her makes me look like I'm losing my grip! Women aren't targets unless _I_ say they are, moron. And Tracy Steelgrave is _not_ a target. Hit Terranova or Lococco directly, but you go after the woman again, and I'll castrate you. Personally."

Castellano turned to glare at his godfather. "Killing the bitch is only vigorish," he snarled. "Vince Terranova is gonna lose everything before I'm done with him." He turned to pace the other direction. "If he thinks I'm just gonna stand around playing with myself while he walks off with Aiuppo's business, he's dead wrong, Tommy. _Dead_ wrong. And I'll mow down anyone stupid enough to get in my way."

Eboli rose to his feet, palms flat on the desk-top, leaning forward. "Leave the woman alone, Brandy, or you're gonna wish Lococco's bullet had finished the job. I swear, I'll kill you myself if you don't _back off_!" He held the younger man's eyes until Castellano's dropped in reluctant submission. "Any part of that you don't understand?" He waited for the slight shake of Brandon's head, seeing the rebelliousness in every muscle, and continued. "I want you outta town. There's some numbers action that needs the personal touch in Atlanta. Larry will walk you through it. Deal with it. Cool off. Figure out a way to get at Terranova without going through the woman. I don't care how big a mess you make when you do him and his partner. They're gonna be trouble. But stay away from the woman." He straightened, turning away, signaling the end of the interview.

Castellano glowered at his godfather's back for a long moment before turning and hobbling out of the office.

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Piccolini let himself into the penthouse suite that Susan Profitt had taken in a notable old residential apartment building on the outskirts of Greenwich Village, anticipating the weekend off from his new duties as electronics maven for the Terranova organization. It was hardly taxing — indeed, it was by far the most enjoyable _legitimate_ job he'd ever held. But it paled in comparison to the time spent in Susan's bed. Time that came far too infrequently for his tastes at the moment. He dropped the case that held his laptop next to the elaborate Louis XIV chest that served as a hall table and made his way deeper into the apartment. "Susan?" he called out for her.

"In here, David," she replied from the livingroom. 

He entered the room to find her reclining on the couch in a sapphire silk robe that emphasized the color of her eyes, not to mention the curves of her figure. He bent to kiss her hungrily as she put down the book she was reading to run her fingers through his hair.

"So how is your new job going?" she asked, sitting up to make room on the sofa for him.

He grinned at her, cheeky in his self-satisfaction. "Piece'a cake," he assured her, leaning forward to kiss her again. "You miss me?" he asked as he slipped a hand inside her robe to caress a breast.

Somewhat to her surprise, Susan had to admit she had. She told him as much as she began to undress him. He was more than ready for her and she knew better than to expect her own needs to be met until she had taken the edge off the boy's libido. Kneeling at his feet, she dealt with his more pressing desire. When his shudders had died to an occasional shiver, she rose and took him by the hand, leading him into her bedroom with its' opulent canopied bed, and lay down across it with him, letting him unfasten her robe and push it off her shoulders. "What have you found out about them?" she asked as he began to stroke her.

"Vince and his wife seem nice. The other guys, their bodyguards, are pretty much solid muscle, including what's between their ears. Lococco should be coming home, day after tomorrow," he told her, mouth brushing the sensitive skin of her throat and trailing down over her collarbone. "I have a few surprises set up for him when he does get back. I've had access to every P.C. system in the place, including his, supposedly to upgrade their firewalls. He's gonna have a bad case of gremlins. The whole security system is rigged to feed his login code false signals on a random timetable. If his nose for trouble is as hyper as you say it is, it's gonna drive him outta his mind in short order."

Susan's sigh of satisfaction was only partially in response to David's touch. It was the contemplation of her revenge on Roger Lococco that aroused her now as much as the touch of Piccolini's hands. Her plan struck her as somehow karmic, it's tactics those Lococco had used to drive her completely out of her mind after Mel's death. To use them on him in retaliation seemed only fitting, smacking as it did of old testament justice and the admonishment to do unto others as they had done unto you. The challenge lay in the fact that Lococco's mind was far from the distraught state hers had been in. His formidable intelligence was a hurdle that she was fortunate in having an ally in overcoming. David's mastery of electronics would allow a type of battle that Lococco could not win, especially as his state of mind began to be questioned by those around him. Depending on what David discovered during his tenure inside Vinnie's operation, the way to destroy Lococco emotionally as he had destroyed her would become clear. But that would have to wait until he had returned home, and to the pattern of his daily life. There was no doubt in her mind that she would eventually find a way to do as she had vowed. Roger Lococco would beg for his death when she had finished. If he was fortunate, she would grant the request. 

As David mounted her, their bodies mating, her thoughts scattered under the erotic onslaught of his insistent thrusts. It was Mel she let herself call out for, imagine in her arms and in her body. David had come to use that as an indicator of his sexual prowess, and her fantasies of Mel stirred him to even greater efforts. It had grown increasingly easy to indulge that fantasy as his skill had increased. She reveled in his lust, delighting in the slender virility of his body, luxuriating in his obsession for her. It would be hard to send him from her bed at the end of the weekend, she knew, and set about making the most of his presence there now, determined that they would both be satiated when he left again.


End file.
